Feeding your PC with the best DDR4 RAM for PC gaming can make a difference to in-game f🦩ramerates🧸, and can pay dividends elsewhere by making your system snappier to respond.
How much RAM you need is a constant question faced by the PC gamer. 8GB should be considered the absolute minimum nowadays; 4GB just doesn’t cut it any more, even if you buy the fastest and best RAM available. Many games are beginni𒅌ng to recommend 16GB. Those intending to use their PCs for video editing or 3D rendering alongside their gaming should consider 32GB.
The best budget DDR RAM
This is a great RAM to start with on a budget, ๊especially if you’re building a PC for the first time. This will manage the minimum specifications for games from 2012 onwards, and while most modern games are ok with 4GB of RAM, you're probably better off starting with 8GB to avoid having to replace it too soon in the future.
It also is compatible with the Intel XMP 2.0 standard, which means, if you felt daring, you could try and overclock the memory bandwidth speed. But only do this if you’ve had experience in this. It has been known for PC’s to fail e☂ven at the boot-up process when the wrong overclock figure is attempted with RAM. It’s also a great upgrade opportunity, as you can🌌 buy another of the same module, have double the memory, and in ‘dual channel’ mode.
You can tell it's powerful because of the LED
While the recommended RAM specifications for a game are fine, there also needs to be room to think of the RAM you’ll be using when you’re streaming with friends, capturing, running multiple apps, or putting any other strain on your PC, so this should be a big factor in your purchase. Streaming applications and capturing your game can be taxing on memor❀y, which is why I always recommend ‘doubling’ the amount of RAM if you’re looking to use a PC just for gaming. You may not even be interested now, but you may need it in the future.
More RAM can’t hurt for a gaming PC, especially with the amazing games coming in the fall. This Trident RAM has an incredibly high bandwidth of 4266Mhz, so you’ll have no trouble running the likes of Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Battlefield 5. Even though the resolution you can choose is mainly down to your CPU and Graphics Card's power, the RAM is how all that information goes from one component to another, so you need quality stuff. If you have an AMD Ryzen in your system withಞ this RAM, you should have no problems playing games in native 4K resolution.
Another big factor of setting up a great gaming PC, I’ve found, is that people want to show how nice the actual PC unit looks, not just in how it renders the games. This RAM gets full marks for making a visual imp൩ression: it can light up your rig nicely, and there’s even an application where you can individually assign lights to each of the modules. A lot of fun can be had with this but, of course, it depends if you have the right case to look at the components.
All the RAM you need
If money is no object, may I introduce the insane 32GB RAM from Corsair and its Vengeance line? An incredible amount of memory, where the m🌠odules show a soft glow of lights when slotted in, and the PC is running, where it almost ‘pulses’ off and on.
Running in ‘dual channel’ mode with a massive 3600MHz of bandwidth speed, you will have no problem meeting th𒊎e required specifications of most games and, I suspect, for many years to come.
In all honesty, 32GB of RAM is overkill for many use cases, though it's becoming more and more common. It’s venturing into RAM that a beginner Server needs but, on the other hand, it does future-proof one part of your PC. And being able to overclock🔜 the RAM only adds to this.
Alan Bradley was once a Hardware Writer for GamesRadar and PC Gamer, specialising🅠 in PC hardware. But, Alan is now a freelance journalist. He has bylines at Rolling Stone, Gamasutra, Variety, and more.
