Does RAM speed matter for gaming on Intel? Testing memory up to 4000MHz

Way back in 2014, Corsair's Dominator Platinum memory was some of the finest the industry had to offer - brand new DDR4, rated at speeds of up to 3300MHz and available in four-stick kits totalling a whopping 16GB... for only $900. Since then, capacities have gone up substantially, with 8GB and 16GB sticks now becoming commonplace, while prices have gone way down. Frequencies have also slowly ramped up over time, and in 2020, 3200MHz RAM is considered the baseline speed for even budget builds, with 3600MHz being a high performance option that doesn't cost the earth. Today, we're testing the next logical step - 4000MHz RAM - to see what further performance advantages we can find.

Today's analysis centres around an Intel test platform, where we tested a 4000MHz RAM kit at frequencies from 3200MHz to 4000MHz in 200MHz increments at the kit's rated CL19 timings. We also dipped our toes in the water of RAM overclocking, with results of a 4200MHz overclock, plus tightened CL16 timings from 3200MHz to 4000MHz. We also tested three RAM kits we had on hand at their XMP settings to see whether you can expect big changes between RAM from different manufacturers at the same rated speed. That's fourteen different configurations altogether, which is why this testing did take some time to perform.

As usual, gaming will be our main focus, with three of our favourite titles tested, but we also snuck in some content creation workloads to see if higher frequency RAM or faster timings can make a difference in other scenarios too. We also wrote up a quick buyer's guide to RAM, to give you some basic rules of thumb when you're next building or upgrading a gaming PC.

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