How to Choose a Gaming RAM?

Here are some things that you need to take note of when choosing a gaming RAM.

Motherboard

As mentioned earlies, different type of RAM uses different type of slot. Your motherboard won’t be able to support DDR/DDR2/DDR3 concurrently. Before you buy/upgrade your RAM, it is important to find out which type of RAM your motherboard supports, how many slots are there and what is the maximum memory space that it supports.

Memory Size

Of course, the bigger the memory, the better it is. Most motherboard nowadays allow you to add RAM up to 4GB in size. For a gaming computer, we recommend no less than 1GB of RAM, perhaps even going up to 2GB if your budget allows. If cost is a factor, it’s fine to stop at 512MB, but that really is the minimum you should go to. When you have enough cash, grab another 512MB for your system.

Single or Dual Channel?

Dual-channel memory is a term that’s used to describe a matching pair of memory modules installed in a dual-channel computer system.

The term, however, can be a little misleading because the memory modules themselves are no different than the memory used in any other computer. Rather, it’s the motherboard that’s different.

In a dual-channel system, the computer motherboard is designed to work with two memory channels instead of one. This allows the system to handle memory processing more efficiently by using the theoretical bandwidth of two memory modules at a time, reducing system latency time and making the whole system faster.

The key to taking full advantage of dual-channel memory operation is installing a pair of matching memory modules (i.e., same size, speed, etc.) at a time. The modules must be identical to each other for dual-channel operation to perform correctly.

When Getting Two Or More RAM Modules…

Brand

If you are getting two or more RAM modules for you PC, ensure that all your memory is of the same brand. Mixing and matching does not always yield the best results. Sometimes they won’t even boot up together, or they cause continual system crashes. Memory is very specific; the slightest difference in the memory chips can cause you problems. Although this is not always the case, it is not recommended. The potential hassle aren’t worth it.

Speed

Try to keep all the memory the same frequency. Don’t buy one chip of PC4200 and another of PC5400. If you do this, the data transfer speed will be limit at PC4200 and you are wasting your money. In the worst scenario, the system might crash since the slower RAM is not able to catch up with the faster RAM.