Best DDR4 RAM

RAM tends to be the most overlooked area when it comes to PC hardware specs, even for gaming desktops. For the most part, it makes sense, RAM doesn’t have as much impact on gaming as CPU or GPU you do, and it’s probably on par with SSDs in terms of how much it actually helps. That being said, having extra RAM (especially better RAM), can be super helpful in certain situations, such as general browsing, or for heavy strategy games.

Of course, the amount of RAM out there these days are ridiculous, and it’s hard to find the best DDR4 RAM without trudging through pages and pages of them. Not to mention the fact that their specs can also be confusing at times. Finally, there is the DDR3 vs. DDR4 question, causing even more confusion.

Therefore, the natural solution would be to find some kind of article-type list where somebody gives you a bunch of good suggestions, as well as some information on choosing good RAM . . . oh wait, this is that kind of article-type list!

So, what is the best DDR4 RAM you can buy? 🖥️ 🎮

View At Amazon

Pros & Cons

• Great performance for price
• 3rd party RGB support

• Won’t hit DDR4-4000 with overclocking

Specifications:

• Speed: 3000 Mhz

CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO Review

A large part of any RAM is how it works with timings and clock speed and the Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO manages quite well in those regards. In fact, most RAM default to 2133 Mhz out of the box and this one is no different, so don’t expect great non-XMP performance.

To get yourself the higher timings, you’re going to have to rely on manual adjustments and that’s generally where this RAM shines.

It’s able to easily hit 3000 Mhz, and with CAS 16, it has some pretty nifty performance. While Corsair does market it as able to hit 4000 Mhz +, in fact, it will barely hit that 4000 Mhz mark. Real-life performance and stability will mean that you’ll generally keep it at the 3600 Mhz range, and more realistically, you’d be looking at 3200 Mhz.

It’s that 3200 Mhz which really makes the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro quite a bargain, and even though it won’t hit those higher speeds, it’s actually not a bad value proposition.

Touching briefly on the RGB, you get a lot of control through Corsair’s iCUE utility software, and it’s a cinch to sync up your RAM with other Corsair gear. It also has a wide variety of colors and effects so you can really hone into the kind of lighting you want.

I’ll also mention that iCUE has a great monitoring suite that allows you to see things such as temps and frequency, which is pretty handy when you’re overclocking.

All in all, the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro treads the line quite well between price and performance. It won’t get as fast as 4600 Mhz+ but it’s stable 3200 Mhz compared to the price you’re paying is excellent. Oh, and the RGB is pretty sweet too.

View At Amazon

Pros & Cons

• Great timings
• Good XMP performance

• A bit on the pricier side
• Tall heatsink may cause clearance issues

Specifications:

• Speed: 3600 Mhz

Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 16GB Review

With the Corsair Dominator Platinum, I want to start out with talking about the RGB lighting, which has changed quite a bit from the previous version and generally different from what you’d expect. Rather than going with an LED bar, you have 12 different LEDs that diffuse lighting across the RAM (and they do a pretty good job at it).

What really makes the RGB standout though, is that these are specially designed by Primax and they’ve managed to decrease the size of SMD LED from 2.8mm cubed to 0.2mm cubed while making them 60% brighter and 40% less power-hungry.

All that put together means that the RGB lighting doesn’t put as much heat and power stress on the ram as compared to other manufacturers. This is important, because there’s very little space on a ram stick in the first place, and most of that is put towards the heat sink and heat dissipation. So, the new LEDs certainly add benefit in their own right.

Moving on to performance though, you’ll be happy to hear that the Corsair Dominator Platinum manages to easily hit the stock XMP at 3600 MHz mark.

Of course, a large part of having ram like this is overclocking, and you’re likely to be able to 4,200 Mhz, although it’s going to require a lot of tweaking and stability might be an issue. More realistically, you could probably hit 4,000 Mhz much more easily while maintaining better system harmony.

Of course, you get the iCUE utility software to handle all your RGB lighting, including a myriad of colors and 15 pre-made lighting effects, although you can make your own. The LEDs are also very bright, so if you’re looking for something that really stands out, you’re in luck here.

Unfortunately, it can be finicky sometimes to sync up with other gear, but with the number of options you have, you’ll manage to find something that works.

All in all, the RGB variant of the Corsair Dominator Platinum is a really great entry and an amazing premium choice, especially when you consider the potential speeds you can get. Similarly awesome are the new SMD LEDs which are smaller, more powerful and less power-hungry, so you’re getting a product that’s built better overall.

Anyway, it’s one of the best RAM for gaming out there, so you really can’t go wrong with this one.

View At Amazon

Pros & Cons

• Really good value

• Relies on overclocking to reach that value

Specifications:

• Speed: 2666 Mhz

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB Review

When it comes to budget RAM, there’s always a lingering question: Whether one should go for higher bus speeds on ram that isn’t overclocking oriented or lower bus speeds on ram that is.

In the case of the Corsair Vengeance LPX, I would argue that the lower base speed is arguably better, especially when compared to something like Kingston’s HyperX 3000Mhz offering. This is mostly due to the excellent overclocking potential of the LPX.

As mentioned, the speed out of the box is 2666 Mhz, which isn’t much to look at these days, although when you enable Corsair’s XMP profile, it boosts the speeds at 2800 Mhz.

Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and 3000 Mhz should be easily achievable while maintaining system stability, although going higher than that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. So again, if we compare it to the HyperX 3000Mhz, we’re already getting the same performance at around $35 cheaper.

Of course, herein lies the problem and that’s mainly in that results can often vary depending on the particular gear and setup you have. That might not necessarily be a bad thing, especially if you’re aiming for budget RAM and are willing to settle for 2666 Mhz anyway. That extra potential boost in performance at no extra cost, already makes this a great value proposition.

That being said, it doesn’t have any RGB, which as we all know, make RAM 120% faster (no they don’t, I’m just kidding, please don’t @ me). Oh, and one thing I really like about the LPX is it’s low profile, so if you don’t have much space or are going for micro-ATX or mini-ITX build, these should fit in just fine.

View At Amazon

Pros & Cons

• Easy to install

• QA seems to be a bit hit and miss

Specifications:

• Speed: 2,400

Crucial 16GB Kit Review

For the majority of laptops, the included RAM is more than enough to satisfy your needs, but sometimes as laptops get older (or just because you want the performance), getting a RAM stick can be beneficial. So don’t imagine that we’ve forgotten about you laptop users out there!

The Crucial 16GB kit as actually a reasonably good upgrade at a good price. Granted, the 2400 Mhz speed is slightly on the lower end, especially if you have a really high-end gaming laptop, but the slower speeds tend to help with heat management. That being said, you can absolutely overclock these, and you can probably expect a stable performance of around 2667 Mhz.

That may not seem like much, especially when compared to the previous RAM on this list, but for laptop hardware, it’s actually not too bad.

One other thing I’d like to mention is that this RAM is also pretty great if you have an Apple laptop, such as the Mac mini or the iMac 2020. So if you have the technical competency, and the courage, to make an upgrade to your Mac laptop, these Crucial RAM sticks should serve you well.

Anyway, if you prefer laptops over PC builds, check out our guide on the best gaming laptops as well.

DDR4 RAM: Buying Guide

For the most part, picking DDR4 RAM has remained the same as DDR3, with the notable exception that you’re getting much higher frequencies. That’s where the main problem comes in, because most people tend to mostly look at the frequency and essentially ignore everything else. The reality is far from that though, so here’s a quick primer on how to understand ram speeds.

Speed

RAM speed generally refers to the frequency, or a number of cycles, the RAM can do per second and is usually referred to in Mhz. So, a 3200 Mhz ram can do 3200 cycles per second whereas a 2666 Mhz ram could only do 2666Mhz per cycle. Obviously, the higher the frequency, the faster the ram.

Now here is where it gets a little bit more complicated. The frequency of the RAM is only one part of the speed equation for your RAM, with the other part being Column Access Strobe (CAS) latency or just CL for short. Basically, this identifies the delay between your ram receiving a command and issuing it. Usually, it will look something like 14 – 16 – 16 – 35 and that indicates the number of clock cycles the ram takes to respond.

As you can see, a 3000 Mhz CAS 16 might be faster than a 3200 Mhz CAS 18. So how do you get the actual RAM speed? Simple, just take the frequency and divide it by the first number in the CAS timings and that gives you the number of instructions it can do per second.

So, if you take a 3000 Mhz CAS 16 it would be 3000/16 = 187.5. Compare that to a 3200 Mhz CAS 18, 3200/18 = 177.77 and you can see that it’s actually ‘slower’ even though it has a higher frequency.

Overclocking

RAM generally tends to defaults at 2,133 Mhz out of the box with very few exceptions (which I’m not going to get into). When you see RAM rated for higher than that, it’s generally an indication of the speed that the ram can be overclocked to.

Usually, this is done through XMP profiles that come from the manufacturer and are usually made for Intel or AMD (or both in some cases), something you’d have to check in your motherboard manual. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t overclock it manually so don’t worry about that.

Capacity

One final thing I’d like to mention is the capacity, which is that number before the GB you tend to see on RAM. For the most part, capacity is more important than frequency, so if it’s a question of one or the other, try and aim for capacity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DDR4 Better Than DDR3?

Absolutely, DDR4 provides for much higher theoretical speeds than DDR3. Specifically, DDR3 starts at 800 Mhz and officially tops out to 2,133 Mhz whereas DDR4 starts at 1,600 Mhz and officially tops out at 3,200 Mhz, although certain kits can hit 4,800.

Another difference is that DDR3 runs at 1.5V while DDR4 runs at 1.2V (which is around 15W worth of savings).

Can I Put DDR4 RAM in a DDR3 Slot?

Absolutely not, DDR4 is not backward compatible. Aside from the above-mentioned change in voltage, the motherboard will likely not even support it. Even if you tried, the notch on the DDR4 stick has been moved from where it was on DDR3 so that people don’t accidentally put the former in the latter.

Which RAM Speed Is the Best for Gaming?

As mentioned above, the more important thing is capacity, rather than speed. That being said, even 2,133 Mhz should be fairly good enough for most gaming applications, since the frequency mostly effects editing programs more than anything else.

The only caveat to that is heavy simulation/grand strategy games, in which case having a bit higher frequency might help, but ultimately more capacity is what’s going to make the difference.

Conclusion

As you can tell, there’s a lot that goes into figuring out the best DDR4 RAM for your needs. I certainly hope that I’ve at least given you some interesting choices, or failing that, some info on deciding what you should go for. Either way, good luck with choosing your ram and happy shopping!

Sources:

1. How RAM Affects Performance, Dell US