DDR3 Vs DDR4-Which is Better and Why

RAM is used to hold the data that is frequently accessed by the processor. Well, we have HDDs or SSDs to store data, but data transfer even from these is comparably slower than data transfer through RAM. So RAM tends to be one of the most important parts of your PC.Over the time there have been certain technological advancements in almost every computer component and RAM is one of those components. DDR3 being the most used type of RAM nowadays pretty much keeps up with almost any kind of computational need for a daily user. But now DDR4 has come up as in the market as a successor to DDR3. While it features certain improvements, but still is it good enough for someone to upgrade DDR3 to DDR4 type RAM. We’ll be looking at certain aspects that would differentiate between these two types of RAMs.

Voltage Consumption:

For DDR3 RAM 1.5V is the standard voltage consumption, while DDR4 takes up 1.2V. This is not that huge of a difference if you are using RAMs on your PC at home, but still, for large server farms this small difference adds up to be a huge saving.

Cost Factor:

When DDR4 RAM was introduced the price gap was huge but since then the prices of DDR4 have come down. Choosing between both for a normal user on the basis of the cost wouldn’t really matter but still, DDR4 are priced a little high than DDR3 RAMs.

Pin Structure:

DDR3 uses 240 pins connector while DDR4 uses a 288 pin connector. So a motherboard or a CPU that works with DDR3 won’t work with a DDR4 RAM and vice versa.

Performance:

DDR4 can transfer data at a rate between 2133MT/s and 4266MT/s which is higher than DDR3 transfer rate of 800MT/s and 2133MT/s. Also clock speed for DDR4 is around 3200 MHz and for DDR3 is 2400MHz. Well DDR4 provides better specs but with one drawback that sometimes it can hamper the performance with high latency. Higher clock speeds for DDR4 make up for this latency but this does not really happen to be a great advantage.

So which RAM to choose?

Before choosing between them first you need to consider which RAM does your system support and how soon are you going to upgrade the system in future. If you are planning to upgrade to DDR4 from DDR3 you should consider whether is it worth spending money or not. Well for the time being if you are hung up on DDR3 there is no need to upgrade to DDR4 because all DDR3 can pretty well handle all the basic activities, even if you are a gamer you should not have any problem with that also. If you are using one of the latest processors on your PC upgrading to DDR4 can be a great deal even for the future.