Important Announcement for All PC Builders 🚨

[Antantaru_]

Basically 3200MHz being advertised is actually 3200 MT/s which is equal to 1600 MHz so it’s clearer what you’re getting, since DDR means double data rate

[bcwlkr]

I usually just download another 64G when my PC starts to slow down.

[Trooplee]

A RAM module with 1600MHz clock cycle and 3, 200MT/s data rate may be advertised as 3, 200MHz, which is technically incorrect. The practice has continued to this day. Some manufacturers fear the switch will make their RAM modules look half as fast without any change in specification.

This is the easiest explanation I found from Google. Hope this helps.

[lghtningcs]

It was always mts but people and brands started calling it mhz

[HollowIchigoBankai]

I am here for this change. I was actually looking into the difference last night.

[TheDude]

When DDR was invented the main feature was that it could transmit data twice per clock cycle. So the actual Mhz were effectively doubled. Since there was basically no difference for the longest time manufacturers used the effective transfer rate as Mhz on the box while the actual clock speed was half. With Ryzen it became important again since cpu functions are now based on the actual clock of the ram.

[luciferhzd]

This has been happening since DDR 5 came out, they fixed the error, the correct name is MT/s, what happened is that MHz was used when those are half the amount of MT that the ram has, it was used years ago for pure publicity.

[creeloper]

Fun Fact, the "DDR" in "DDR4", " DDR5" etc. stands for "Double Data Rate", exactly because of what you explained, basically data is transmitted and received by the data banks both when the clock signal is rising and falling (rising edge and fallig edge more precizely) so yhe amount of transfers done is indeed 2 times the clock speed.

Also the "G" in "GDDR5", "GDDR6" etc. stands for "Graphics", now you know :D

[Hunterkiller]

Also it's not just about the base speed but the speed / latency combo.

[BannedInChinaTM]

Same thing is true for CPU. It's not just about frequency, but also how many clock cycles it takes to perform the instructions

[TestofOne]

Also to be clear. . .er MT/s is a measure of transitions on the ram data bus to the processor, which is not the same as Mb/MB as it depends what the bus width of the ram. Industry standard is 64 bit bus, so data rate is your transfer rate times bus width (in bits or bytes, however you want to measure). This does not detract from big number better, unless your bus width is somehow smaller than desktop standards, at which point it becomes a matter of use, not size.

[falconsh]

„640Kb (of RAM) should be enough for anyone […] I don't think any programs will need more than that!"
Bill Gates, 1981

[GregFirehawk]

DDR stands for double data rate, meaning it transfers data twice as fast basically. A digital clock is a square wave oscillating between 1 and 0, and normally it only does things on the positive pulse. DDR is setup so it does an action on both the positive and negative pulse. So if you imagine it as tick tock, it normally does something every tick, but ddr also does something every tock, effectively doubling it's actions and doing two transfers for every one clock cycle. The change in units is technically more transparent, but ultimately makes no difference and its just semantics. Fun fact, your DDR ram is also typically D ram, and that D is separate and stands for dynamic, as opposed to static S ram. The short and simple difference is s ram will remember what's going on even if you unplug it, where as d ram will almost immediately reset to all 0s if not powered.

[ha]

It has to do with "false advertisement" as in ddr (double data rate) data is read/written on the up and the down wall of the clock cicle, what they used to do is double the actual frequency to ease comparison between ddr and sdr (single data rate) memory as a 200 hz ddr transfers data like a 400hz sdr so to avoid confusion they just doubled it

[nialloftara]

Ddr dtands for double data rate. The speed in megahertz is half the effective data rate in mega transfers. Super simple

[Grimega]

For AM5: 6000MHz is actually optimal frquency. Latency from CL30-32-36. CL36 is usually more stable than CL30 but about 2ns slower.

[johlgren]

Windows are going to the manufacturers speed advertised today previous they were showing the clock cycle and not data transfer rate, DDR stands for Double Data Rate meaning it can transfer data on both ON and OFF cycle but the clock cycle only reports ON changes.

[tommytse]

As an electronics major, I find it funny how DRAM is marketed with rising MT/s numbers like 3200, 3600, or 6000, when in theory, frequency is inversely related to time (f = 1/T). The higher the MT/s, the actual clock cycle doesn’t scale proportionally, and latency (in ns) depends on more than just MT/s. But since bigger numbers sell, the industry leans on transfer rates for marketing—even though it doesn’t reflect true latency.

[Keaton.]

The issue here is that "3200 MHz" runs at 1600 MHz, but as it is double data rate... they just multiply that for 2 to get a bigger number, aka a marketing bs... which isn't 100% correct nor 100% wrong. Using mega transfers is way more honest, imho.

[jamakr]

It’s nuanced, but MT is just a more correct way of measuring the applied MHz to how RAM is operating. If RAM was constantly throughput theoretically you could say MHz and MT are interchangeable. For RAM MT/s is the maximum data to be pushed in a memory read or write with respect to the frequency the memory is accessed. This includes sector shifts, reading, writing, CPU synchronizing and any other RAM operations that are called per MoBo clock tick