How To Determine Your Computer's Memory Speed

It may be a while since you have reviewed the specifications of your PC's internal workings or perhaps you inherited a computer for which you have little documentation.  In either case, it's always a good idea to be familiar with the details of the hardware's current performance, as well as potential capabilities, to ensure your computer is working at its optimal performance levels.  In addition, when installing new software, it is imperative that a user knows whether or not his/her computer meets the minimum requirements for a given application.  Should the PC suffer from insufficient processor memory, overloading it with demanding programs could result in crashing or even damage to vital components.  In this article, we will make a concerted effort to proactively ward off these consequences by going through some simple steps to determine the cumulative speed of your PC memory, secondary processor memory, RAM, motherboard, and overall system.

This technical information can be obtained through a number of different avenues; however, the goal of this guide is to provide you with the most efficient yet comprehensive analysis method to ascertain this data.  In making this choice, the rationale of the following relatable analogy taken from the chapters of everyday life was followed.  Look at it this way: if after a personal mishap, you suspect a broken bone or are experiencing muscle pain, you would prefer a doctor to utilize the most effective, least invasive diagnostic technique to analyze the injury.  Just as surgery would be considered too extreme when first making a diagnosis, with an X-Ray or MRI being the most desirable options, the plan to open up the case of your computer to poke around at each memory component should be replaced with using the PC equivalent of the X-Ray/MRI...a free, incredibly detailed computer memory diagnostic software package called CPU-Z.

Used by professionals and easily understood by the casual computer user, CPU-Z is made freely available by its publisher, CPUID, most easily downloaded at the following link and compatible with all Windows based operating systems:

download.cnet.com

Once there, click the 'Download Now' hyperlink and follow the prompts to download/save the installation file to your computer.  After the download has completed, 'Run' the file, read the dialog boxes, and click 'Next' until the installation is finished.

Click the CPU-Z shortcut now in your Programs list under the CPUID heading.  Once running, you will initially see the total core speed for your computer on the CPU tab.  Click the 'Memory' tab and you will see the system memory breakdown.  For example, in the 'Type' field, you may see that your SDRAM is classified as DDR, DDR2, or DDR3, depending on the age of your computer or upgrades.  In the DRAM Frequency field, memory speed is indicated in megahertz (MHz) in base DDR terms.  Because DDR2 and DDR3 technologies can work at twice the speed of DDR's data rate, you would multiply the MHz by 2 to determine the full DDR2 or DDR3 memory speed.  For example, with a listed Type DDR2 memory and DRAM Frequency of 200 MHz, one would multiply 200 x 2 to equal a DDR2-400 memory speed, equivalent to 400 million Data Transfers per Second (DTPS).  Following suit, DDR2-800 would equal 800 million DTPS and so forth.  Many other valuable pieces of performance data are displayed as well, among clearly labeled tabs and fields, proving CPU-Z to be the most comprehensive single stop for memory speed diagnosis and hub to determine your processor's state of health.