How much of a difference would it make if I switch out my current Corsair 1600MHz CL11 DDR3 for 2000MHz CL9? Especially for the game PlanetSIde 2

I recently bought two modules of 8G (16G total) Corsair Vengeance Series memory

Specs: 1600MHz CL11 DDR3.  
System Specs: i7 4770K to 4.0GHz 
ASUS GTX 770 
MSI Z87 ZMPOWER MAX

During most of the games I have played, the performance is really good. However, when I play PlanetSide2, the framerate sometimes drops to a level unplayable. I do realize that the game currently is poorly optimized for multicore CPUs, but some people have told me in-game that they even have steady 45-60 fps during big fights with an i5. And comparing the fps before and after I overclocked my CPU to 4.0Ghz reveals no significant improvement. So I suspect that it is the memory that is bottlenecking the performance.

First of all, do you agree?

Second, even if that's not the case for the game, would I benefit a lot and see some noticeable improvement over gaming performance if I switch out the 1600MHz CL11 memory and use memory of higher frequencies, like 1866 or 2000MHz +, with a lower CL like 8 or 9? Because I think CL11 might be too high at 1600MHz and will hold back my system.

FrozenLand

Posted 2013-09-26T13:40:44.897

Reputation: 55

Isn't network speed a likely bottleneck in an online game? – Paul – 2013-09-26T13:45:39.163

You likely wouldn't see any sort of performance difference any differences would be so small ( i.e. like 1fps ) kind of differences. – Ramhound – 2013-09-26T13:52:09.647

@Paul, well, my ping and latency are alright. I am just having low fps, but not high network latency. It is just that during intense fights, i get low frame rate, but I can still react quickly. – FrozenLand – 2013-09-26T14:21:15.697

Powertweaking (including purchasing expensive RAM) memory will give you a 5-10 % performance boost. So no more than 4-15 fps. – Ярослав Рахматуллин – 2013-09-26T14:28:22.257

the only game I'd recommend improving memory performance for is dwarf fortress, since that is widely acknowledged as the games primary bottleneck. it has ASCII graphics, so the standard concerns (GPU) aren't a concern. – Frank Thomas – 2013-09-26T15:41:03.930

@FrozenLand Latency is a measure of how fast an individual packet can get to you, but the other component is bandwidth. If the problem increases with increased participation, then it could be that either the amount of data that needs to get to your machine in order to get the frame rendered isn't getting there in time, or there is a delay due to a dodgy connection. Does the same thing happen in single player mode with lots of bots - this would eliminate network as an issue if the same thing happens. – Paul – 2013-09-27T01:20:08.107

So going from CL11 to C8 wont make a huge difference? I mean, wouldnt that mean that the time for memory to retrieve some data will be reduced by about 1/4? – FrozenLand – 2013-09-26T13:50:49.853

1@FrozenLand - Before you actually replace the memory try overclocking your current memory – Ramhound – 2013-09-26T13:54:35.950

@FrozenLand: Yes, grossly simplified that is true. Unfortunately a memory performance gain will in general translate to a much smaller overall performance gain. If you see 2 more frames/s out of this, you're lucky. – David Foerster – 2013-09-26T14:02:03.540

Thanks folks. Some one said to me that CL11 is slow, so I thought I should upgrade this. But if there won't be significant, if any noticeable, performance gain, then I probably won't do it. I may just buy a pair to try and if they dont improve the performance, I will just return them. I think amazon and newegg have generous return policies. – FrozenLand – 2013-09-26T14:18:43.390

How much of a difference would it make if I switch out my current Corsair 1600MHz CL11 DDR3 for 2000MHz CL9? Especially for the game PlanetSIde 2

Answers