Faster gaming performance with faster ram?

[bradleyg5]

Or rather if I have a SSD will my map load/game load times be measurably faster? I see a lot of performance tests comparing FPS with different RAM speeds, but I haven't seen a single one comprehensively comparing load times. It seems that extra bandwidth would help best with loading large amounts of data into and out of memory.

[artistpavel]

Generally RAM has reached the point where you can choose it based on your favourite colour scheme, the difference in speed gives 0.5 fps difference. SSD will make a difference.

[bradleyg5]

Yeah I've seen the FPS charts, but I'm theorizing it would help with load times if you had an SSD. You need to move a couple GBs into memory when you load up a game so I imagine if the Hard drive was infinitely fast the RAM speed would make a difference? I mean what if I'm using AfterEffects and I'm loading up a RAM preview? does faster memory yield quicker results?

I've just never seen load tests done with a basis on RAM speed.

[Galcobar]

Even an SSD will not be capable of saturating RAM these days -- RAM interfaces are measured in GB/s.

Lynnfield, to give you an idea of an older dual-channel RAM design, reached 13,739 MB/s read and 10,868 MB/s write in Everest using two cores. Its aggregate memory bandwidth was above 17 GB/s using four cores (SiSoft Sandra).

For perspective the latest OCZ Z-drive, with a PCI-e x8 interface and four controllers, maxes out at 2000 MB/s read and write.

[bradleyg5]

but what if the CPU is decompressing what the hard drive is sending it, this could make that 2000GB/s compound.

[Galcobar]

(NB: I forgot about the eight-controller Z-drives which can reach 2800 MB/s)

Watch your units, they're important. And then ask yourself what game sends a file anywhere near that large (Rage has massively compressed textures and even so the entire set would only occupy 1TB). And then keep in mind part of Sandforce's speed advantage is that it compresses files, so will not be able to reach advertised speeds if the files are already compressed.

Further, are you seriously considering spending $11,000 for a hard drive?

If the hard drive were infinitely fast then yes, RAM speed would make a difference. Hard drives are not infinitely fast.

Short answer: anything you can reasonably build in a desktop will not have the RAM as a bottleneck to the hard drive, assuming equivalent-era components.

[bradleyg5]

So ram speed has zero impact on game load times?

[LarkStarr]

I wouldn't say zero, I'd say entirely negligible though.