WidowPC Gaming Computers - How RAM Works and How to Buy It
Gaming computers are the most extreme version of the personal computer. This is widely known throughout both personal and business computer users. For instance, WidowPC focuses on gaming computers and, yet, supplies the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, SONY and several scientific institutions with the same machines. Is it because the DoD wants to get in on the gaming craze? That would be cool, but that's not the case.
All of these organization acknowledge the fact that a true gaming computer (versus one that is simply marketed to gamers) not only contains the best quality hardware for each of it's parts but that those parts integrated together in a system that is designed and tested to the highest specifications. So, the it is a high performance system as a whole.
One of the hallmarks of a real gaming computer is the highest quality matched RAM (RAM is also known as memory and we'll use both terms interchangably in this article). For instance cheap no-brand, generic RAM can be a source of frequent system failure and underperformance.
Generic RAM is not bad to the same specifications that brand name RAM is. Take brand name RAM up a notch you find the top quality brands such as Crucial, Munchkin, Corsair and Apacer. Some of these top quality brands are marketed better than others but these four tend to stand out as true performers when tested in extreme performance environments.
EXTREME GAMING - THE ULTIMATE GAMING COMPUTER PROVING GROUND
If you have been to at least one LAN party, then you've seen at least one massive computer melt down. It's happened at ever LAN party I've been to. The most likely failure points are
1. RAM
2. Motherboard chipset
3. Hard drive
4. CPU
NOTE: Most frequently, these failure points fail because of inadequate cooling. See our guide to cooling a gaming computer to help protect your gaming computer against the most frequent cause of failure.
Generic memory is most likely to fail when it has been exposed to high demand usage for a prolonged amount of time. This pretty defines a LAN party. This conditions build heat in the RAM and the heat causes individual materials that make up the RAM to expand. Different materials expand at different rates. When the stress of different rates of expansion becomes too great for the electrical conductors you get a break in the circuit. Thermal forces are the same forces that drive massive Californian earthquakes. So, thermal expanision and cooling are not to be taken lightly.
Strangely enough, if you can get the RAM cooled down it will work again even after the break in the circuit. This is because the materials will frequently contract down to their original shape, thereby completing the circuit again. Don't be fooled. The RAM is fundamentally unsound now and will immediately fail when it heats up even a little. This is the number one reason not to buy RAM on eBay or at any other place that does not guarantee it parts against defects.
BUY FROM A REPUTABLE, WARRANTEED VENDOR
For instance, WidowPC warrantees all of our desktop gaming computers for 3 years against any manufacturer defect. This is a major warranty because the standard manufacturer warranty only lasts for one year. That means after the first year, WidowPC does not get replacement RAM from the manufacturer under the manufacturer warranty. So, WidowPC has to make sure that we sell the highest quality RAM available to not only protect you against failure, but to protect our company for the long term against having to replace defective RAM at our expense.
WHAT IS DDR RAM
DDR stands for Double Data Rate Synchronous DRAM also known as SDRAM. DDR is SDRAM that has been designed to handle two data operations in one clock cycle. This is similar to the concept behind advantage of dual CPUs or, better, a single dual core CPU. This provides twice the throughput of old SDRAM.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE IN SUPPORT FOR TYPES OF RAM
Currently, AMD processors and motherboards often support slightly different types of RAM from Intel based systems. Also, there are different speeds of RAM that are tailored to the motherboard and CPU they work with. The best way to make sure you have the right type of RAM, that is compatible with your other system components, is to use a RAM configurator like the one at Silicon Mountain Memory.
WHAT IS RAM AND WHY DO I NEED LOTS OF IT
It is generally accepted gamer knowledge that today's games generally run very well with 1 GB of RAM. Yet, that knowledge is meaningless memorization unless the gamer knows why the RAM is needed and what the game and gaming computer are using the RAM for.
RAM or "Random Access Memory" is used by the CPU to store frequently used data for processing. The game developer identifies this data as information that the CPU will need on a higher priority than other data and instructs the CPU to store this data in the RAM. Examples of this sort of data is locations of floors, walls, and the other physical objects within a game environment that you are likely to come in contact with in the near future.
Your graphics card also has RAM on it. This RAM stores all the data that is on your screen. If there is more data on your screen than the amount of memory you have, you'll get lag and jerky response to movement commands.
RAM stores data in memory cells that are organized in orderly grids so that the CPU knows where to find it. The data in RAM is stored and accessed purely through a digital, electrical process, meaning there are no moving parts in a "stick" of RAM as opposed to a hard drive which requires a moving arm to move up and down across a spinning disk to access data. [Read more about gaming computer hard drives here] This makes it a much more difficult and time intensive task to access data on a hard drive than on RAM. However, a specially identified area on the hard drive called the "page file" or "virtual memory" acts as slower RAM when the real RAM is being overwhelmed.
So, if the hard drive is so much slower why don't we replace the hard drive with a huge chunk of RAM to speed the whole system up? The reason is really simple, because RAM is a purely eletrical storage all of the data contained on the RAM is wiped out when the power is shut down. No more electricity means no more eletrons to store the data. So, RAM needs a steady supply of electricity to maintain the data which is one of the reasons a good steady power supply is needed.
So, we use the hard drive to store data that we want to stay on the computer when the computer is turned off. We only store data that we need while the computer is on in RAM and because there is limited space, we only store the really high priority data in RAM. Games these days don't have much more high priority data to store at once than the 1GB that is generally recommended. So, anything amount more than 1GB will increase performance but not as much as the upgrade from 512MB RAM to 1GB RAM.
HOW TO INSTALL RAM
Installing RAM is one of the easiest installation tasks, yet it is also one of the most frequent errors amatuers make. To install RAM, simply line up the copper plated connector shapes with the copper receptors in the motherboard RAM slots and push it down into the receptor. There will always be at least one notch in the copper plated shapes and that notch is what you line up with division in the slot. A good tip for this is to make certain you don't push so hard that you crack the motherboard. A steady pressure with a slight back and forth wiggle (sort of like pulling up tight pants) will allow the RAM to slip into the slot smoothly without harming the motherboard.
The slots are generally filled in priority order, from the closest to the CPU outward. These slots are referred to as "banks". The motherboard manual or website, will generally show you exactly which bank is which, but most advanced motherboard require that bank 0 (usually closest to the CPU) is filled first and the rest are filled in order from there.
When the RAM is completely connected with the slot you will feel a little "click". That click means the thumb locks on the sides of the slide have secured the RAM into place. If you want to remove the RAM in the future (or remove RAM in order to install new RAM) just press down on the thumb locks (located on each side of the slot) and they will pop the RAM out of the slot like a toaster popping up toast.
Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Now go buy a couple WidowPC gaming computers. If you have any questions about how RAM works, what brands are best or any other general questions about RAM, just post a comment on this page and it will be answer usually within 24 hours by one of our knowledgable technicians.
If you have questions about how much RAM to purchase with your WidowPC gaming computer, give us a call at the number at the top of the page or contact us and one of our product consultants will help you immediately.
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