[Hardware]RAM Benchmark Hierarchy: DDR5, DDR4 for AMD, Intel CPUs

[Ronaldskk.]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ram-benchmark-hierarchy

Our RAM benchmark hierarchy will help you find the fastest DDR5 and DDR4 memory kit for your system. Consumers often overlook RAM (Random Access Memory). However, memory is one of the most critical pieces of hardware in any system. The right or wrong memory kit significantly impacts your system's overall performance in gaming, productivity, and (if you don't have enough of it) general sluggishness. Of course, you can always reference our Best RAM list to find the best deals on memory.

Companies regularly release new memory kits with different speeds, timings, capacities, and ranks, making sifting through seemingly endless models surprisingly time-consuming. Our RAM benchmark hierarchy aims to provide a simple database that ranks the best memory kits based on pure performance.

We use a geometric mean of our memory benchmarking results to keep the ranking objective and discard the intangibles, like aesthetics and overclocking headroom. We've got those details in the individual RAM reviews. Furthermore, we suspect many of you would value performance over anything else. However, the geometric means don't always tell the whole story: If you're looking for performance in a specific workload or gaming, we recommend looking at the full review of the memory kit you have in mind.

The score results originate from the geometric mean from our RAM benchmark suite, which consists of scripted and real-world tests. They include Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Adobe Lightroom, Cinebench 2024, Corona 12 benchmark, Blender 4.0 benchmark, V-Ray 6 benchmark, 7-Zip compression and decompression, HandBrake x264 and x265 conversion, LuxMark v4, Windows AI inference, and Y-Cruncher.

For simplicity, we've separated the memory kits into different categories according to their densities. Then, we ranked the memory kits for each capacity from best to worst for both Intel and AMD systems.

The score on our hierarchy may differ slightly from the geometric mean in the individual review. The discrepancy is because we strive to provide results on the most recent and relevant Intel and AMD platforms. Keeping the metrics in the table as up-to-date as possible involves retesting every memory kit. We rest when there's been a substantial change in either of our test systems, such as a new processor, motherboard, or graphics card (or even new firmware revisions), to name a few.

Memory pricing is very volatile. We've restrained ourselves from providing a price-to-performance value since it only captures the pricing for one static moment, and memory pricing fluctuates far too much. So, while you can see up-to-date pricing in each table below, the performance measurements don't consider the price tag.

If you're undecided between two particular kits, it's easy to evaluate the options by dividing the real-time pricing by the geometric mean. Naturally, you'll want the lowest value possible, as a lower number represents more bang for your buck.

Update 25/11: We're updating the memory kits with the latest Intel and AMD platforms (Z890 and X870). The current rankings are still valid if you compare memory kits within the same capacity.