Deciding between standard 2666MHz or faster 3200MHz RAM kits leaves many wondering just how much real-world performance difference exists – and whether it‘s worthwhile paying more for that extra speed…
As a fellow gaming and tech enthusiast myself, I‘ve researched this topic in depth across my own system experiments and every major hardware review site. My goal is to definitively answer the question once and for all!
I‘ll be referencing a combination of hands-on testing data and insights from experts at Linus Tech Tips, Gamers Nexus, Tom‘s Hardware, and more. Complete with relatable examples, performance breakdowns, and easy to digest recommendation for your own rig. Let‘s dive in!
Evolution of PC RAM Speeds
First, a quick history lesson. Looking back at major RAM types over personal computing‘s evolution shows just how drastically speeds have increased over time…
[…]And so DDR4‘s launch in 2014 brought a giant leap, doubling theoretical bandwidth yet again. Consumer grade DDR4-2133 offered 17GB/s, already rivaling DDR3 peaks. With ongoing improvements, today‘s bleeding edge DDR5 drives up to 768GB/s!
But most average users are still on DDR4-2400 to DDR4-3200. The sweet spot balancing cost and real-world performance.
2666 versus 3200 MHz Head to Head
Now focusing in on modern DDR4, how do our two options compare…
As you can see, 3200MHz DDR4 provides 19% higher maximum theoretical bandwidth over standard 2666MHz (25.6GB/s versus 21.3GB/s).
But does that actually translate into a noticeable speedup? Let‘s examine some real-world gaming tests…
Gaming FPS Benchmarks
Reviewers like Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, and Linus Tech Tips have aggregated extensive benchmarks examining RAM speed scaling across various games.
I‘ve compiled their data averaging frames per second (FPS) gains when moving from from 2666MHz to faster 3200MHz memory, testing with mid-range Ryzen 5 and Intel i5 CPUs:
So across a range of top titles, the performance uplift ranges from 1-5%, or ~2-3 FPS faster on average. Definitely measureable, but still fairly small.
Now what about for workstation usage? Digital content creation and editing tends to better leverage extra memory bandwidth…
Video Editing and Encoding
For benchmarks here, I referenced studio test data from Puget Systems, a well respected custom workstation OEM.
They found that in Adobe Premiere Pro, upgrading from DDR4-2666 to DDR4-3200 delivered nice reductions in both live preview lag as well as final 4K export times:
So certainly far more substantial speedups in this category, with nearly ~15% faster timelines and exports thanks to the extra bandwidth!
Now that we‘ve covered some overall real-world performance scaling, what specifically influences whether it‘s worthwhile for your PC…
The Verdict
So in summary, while 2666 vs 3200 MHz DDR4 offers moderate performance differences in most games and applications – upgrading does provide measureable gains. Particularly for Ryzen systems.
I suggest most gamers and power should opt for DDR4-3200 memory kits to future proof their rigs. But you can safely save some money sticking with 2666MHz if on a tight budget.
Either way, remember focusing on matching dual channel RAM capacities first! As always let me know if you have any other questions in the comments below.
