Stop WASTING Money on Fancy RAM

It seems this RAM crisis just won't stop. Earlier today, a customer's wallet

stop. Earlier today, a customer's wallet was brutalized at the local computers RS. Live at the scene is special

RS. Live at the scene is special correspondent Riley Murdoch. Thank you,

Lionus. The scene here is chaos. There

is affected customers everywhere. Excuse

me. Excuse me, sir. I I see you're holding a high-speed DDR5 kit there. Can

you explain why you paid extra for that instead of a lower speed kit?

>> I don't know, man. Uh, everybody tells me I need the more expensive stuff, but I It's just so expensive. I'm just happy they didn't take my other kidney.

>> Should we tell them?

>> Are you a gamer, sir?

>> Yes.

>> Then we've got some fantastic news for you because we tested four CPUs at eight different speeds of DDR5 running as slow as 4,800 mega transfers per second. And

it turns out you might not need to spend as much on memory as you thought.

Ooh, that does not look great. Good

thing he was born with two of them. But

hey, it's not all bad. Let me cheer you up with this segue to our sponsor.

Can we get this guy some help?

>> Synergy. Synergy lets you use one keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers on your local network. You can

even do things like copy and paste in between computers. Check them out with

between computers. Check them out with our link in the video description. The

TLDDR of our extensive testing is that while some CPUs do obviously benefit from faster memory, AMD's recent statement that their popular X3D gaming

CPUs are super down to shack up with even the slowest memory seems to be pretty much accurate. We found that at typical gaming resolutions and settings, there was almost no difference between

kits that run at industry standard or JDEX speeds and faster overclocked gaming RAM. Now, this is not going to

gaming RAM. Now, this is not going to completely solve the problem. Even

slower memory has been impacted by recent price increases, but hey, at least it gives us some options. Let's

find out then how much performance we might be giving up. Starting with Intel, where unfortunately the story is not quite as rosy as AMD's X3D chips. We

chose both a lastg and a current gen representative, and we used our standard labs test benches. Testing took forever, by the way, because we had to use the same memory kit across each platform,

which meant swapping out a lot of RAM.

Let's start with gaming on Raptor Lake.

Looking strictly at our Geo Mean across all games at 1080p, it's pretty clear that our 14900K loves fast DDR5. So, if

your grandma made a strategic DDR5 investment last year and you can get some 8,400 megat transfer per second CL40, to the moon it goes. At least in certain games like Ashes of the

Benchmark, Cyberpunk, and Red Dead Redemption 2. The good news is though,

Redemption 2. The good news is though, as long as you don't pair it with the slowest kit you can find, it won't suffer too much. As for Intel's newer Core Ultra 285K, good news, it couldn't

even run our fastest kit. And as for the rest, as long as you're using something that's faster than JDK, basically don't worry about it. When we look at the allimportant 1% lows, there is at most a

handful of FPS difference across every game in resolution that we tested to the point where I would say that unless you have an FPS counter in the corner, you would never know the difference. And

this is especially true as your resolution and your in-game details scale up. Now, you're probably wondering

scale up. Now, you're probably wondering at this point, if these differences are so small, why were all of you reviewers acting like RAM speed mattered before?

It's all about the context, guys. When

we were talking about 20 or 30 bucks to get a few% performance improvement on your $1,500 or $2,000 gaming PC, that's a no-brainer. Who doesn't want bang for

a no-brainer. Who doesn't want bang for the buck? But we're not talking 20 or 30

the buck? But we're not talking 20 or 30 bucks. We're talking $200 or $300 for a

bucks. We're talking $200 or $300 for a higher speed kit. That changes the math completely. Or does it? Maybe

completely. Or does it? Maybe

productivity will tell a different story. Okay, not in Blender. But our

story. Okay, not in Blender. But our

GDAU compile test does see a decent improvement with higher speed memory on the 14900 K. And that's not a completely isolated case. While many of our

isolated case. While many of our productivity tests do mirror our gaming tests across both Intel's current and last gen chips, there are a significant number of results here where spending

far more on your memory can yield a meaningful difference in performance to the point where if you're making money with your machine, you might want to consider ponying up for a high-speed,

low latency kit, even at today's extortionate pricing, which is exactly the problem that consumers are facing right now. You want to play video games

right now. You want to play video games and you got to budget accordingly. Well,

Joe Workstation user, he's not playing games. He wants to compile his code

games. He wants to compile his code faster. So, he submits a requisition to

faster. So, he submits a requisition to the IT department who goes, >> "Yeah, if it'll make you more productive, go for it."

>> We're going to have a companion lttabs.com article, by the way, that dives a little deeper into which business use cases might benefit and which ones won't. On the subject of business, check out the new sand colored

tech pants at ltstore.com. They offer

loads of utility with hidden pockets galore while keeping you stylish on the job. Now, let's change gears and talk a

job. Now, let's change gears and talk a little bit about AMD. Don't you guys love it when twice a day the corporate puffery clock gets it right? Just look

at those beautifully aligned graphs on our 9800 X3D. Okay, there is a little bit of variance. Our 4,800 megat transfer per second kit does sit in last

place and 6,000 mega transfer CL30 is still the sweet spot. But turn on ray tracing or up the resolution and things become even more seemier than before.

Like on Intel, Cyberpunk and Ashes show the biggest spread in our 1080p results, but it's a much smaller gap. And

realistically, there are cases here where using 16 gig versus 24 gig modules is going to make as much of a difference or more. 3dB cache for the win. As for

or more. 3dB cache for the win. As for

the regular cache, it might be for the win, too. It turns out that while our

win, too. It turns out that while our 9950X did stumble a little bit with our slowest JDK kit, overall, as long as you can get your hands on something,

anything with a tuned expo profile, you probably won't notice a difference.

Especially at risk of sounding like a broken record, at risk of sounding like a broken record. Especially if you turn up your in-game details or kick your resolution up to 4K. Moving on to productivity, we've got a similar story

to what we saw in Intel, just through a different colored lens. The JDK kit is definitely the slowest, demonstrating that overclocked memory does have a reason to exist, just not at the current

prices. Beyond that, there were

prices. Beyond that, there were occasional cases where faster memory, or especially sweet spot memory that runs in sync with AMD's Infinity Fabric at nice low latencies, did result in

measurable gains. But outside of those

measurable gains. But outside of those specific use cases, like GDAU, the differences are not going to be enough to ruin your day. So, in conclusion, don't be this guy. If you're a gamer and

high-speed memory is available for a modest price delta, it can make a lot of sense, especially if you're on an older Intel platform. But right now, I just

Intel platform. But right now, I just can't recommend it, especially to the tens of thousands of you that are buying X3D processors for gaming. By the way, we're going to have X3D processors and all the stuff that we used on our

benches linked in the video description if you guys wanted to check something out for your next rig. Just uh don't expect any great deals on the RAM down there. As for the non-gaming folks, man,

there. As for the non-gaming folks, man, I really feel for the cottage industry professionals right now. The folks who do work at home that requires faster RAM

or especially a lot of RAM. Like, it's

hard to care too much about corporates's workstation budget, but if you're an atome developer or you're a contract creative professional, it is a super sucky time to need an upgrade. The only

good news I have for you is that you can shave a few bucks off of your budget for now and then with the money you saved, hopefully get something a little faster once the bubble pops.

Anytime now would be nice.

All right. Well, I guess it's not happening yet, but um while we continue to wait, here's a word from our sponsor, >> Synergy. If you have multiple computers

>> Synergy. If you have multiple computers on your local network and you have to run from system to system to get any work done, you should check out Synergy.

They let you use a single keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers. And

you can move your cursor in between devices as well as copy and paste. And

unlike KVM switching, there isn't those few seconds of waiting. It supports

hotkeys, TLS encryption, and clipboard sharing. Synergy isn't a subscription

sharing. Synergy isn't a subscription service. There are no reoccurring

service. There are no reoccurring payments. Just choose which one of their

payments. Just choose which one of their three tiers fits your needs most and you go from there. In the end, it's just less clutter and confusion. With

Synergy, one keyboard and mouse is all you need to control every computer in your setup. Grab 50% off using code LTT

your setup. Grab 50% off using code LTT at checkout with our link down below. If

you guys enjoyed this video, make sure to check out the last time we did this, but with DDR4. So, if you want to pick up like an older Intel 12th or 13th gen chip and pair that with some nice fancy

DDR4, you can decide for yourself exactly how much to spend.