PC memory is the temporary storage that your computer uses for immediate data access. It processes information far faster than the data stored on your hard disk — up to a hundred times as fast, depending on the hardware and task at hand. Think of your physical desk at work: The more space you have on it, the more papers and tasks you can keep out at a time without having to thumb through a filing cabinet (your hard drive).
In fact, if your PC doesn’t have enough RAM, everything starts to slow down. That’s because it has to shift the data between your hard drive and RAM, which requires significant amounts of CPU power. It’s a bit like shuffling tennis balls around on the ground.
Most PCs use a type of memory called SDRAM, or Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory. It has two rows of 32 pins and uses a 64-bit data bus, which is twice as wide as the data bus on SIMMs. The latest DIMMs based on fourth-generation double data rate (DDR4) memory use 288-pin connectors to support the wider bus. They can run up to 3600MHz on the latest Intel motherboards with XMP memory profiles.
The fastest DIMMs are also the cheapest, and that’s particularly true now that they’re in the middle of their lifespan. However, you should consider the timings of the module when purchasing it. Timings, often listed as CAS latency, are the delay between your RAM modules receiving a command from the CPU and then executing it. Historically, higher timings meant better performance, but these days the greater bandwidth of high-speed memory typically offsets any increase in latency. PC memory
