Does RAM speed actually matter for gaming?

[Oliver]

Building a new rig. 3200 vs 3600 DDR4 is basically same price. DDR5 4000+ still pricey. For 1440p gaming, real difference? Benchmarks show 1-3 FPS which seems pointless.

 

[Lukas]

Had the same issue with my 4070. Setting power management to prefer maximum performance in Nvidia Control Panel fixed it.

 

[malekidk]

Windows 11 is genuinely better now for gaming. DirectStorage makes a real difference in UE5 games.

 

[Tyler]

3600 is the sweet spot for Ryzen, specifically. The latency difference matters more than the raw MHz number and the benchmarks don't always show that. If the price gap is negligible just get the 3600. You'll regret going cheaper for no reason. DDR5 isn't worth it yet for most gaming setups — the price premium isn't justified by the gains unless you're also doing heavy rendering work.

 

[Jake]

Honestly I don't know enough about this stuff to give you a confident answer. Built my PC about three years ago, googled the sweet spot for the CPU I had, bought that. It runs everything I play without any issues so I've never revisited it.

If you're noticing actual stutters or frame drops it's probably worth checking, but if everything's running fine I wouldn't lose sleep over it.