How to inform what variety of RAM you have

For a very extended time, the most popular path to strengthening your PC’s general performance has been by upgrading the RAM. RAM stands for “random entry memory” and it’s proficiently the ingredient of your Pc that is maintaining observe of what your computer system is now operating on. When RAM is minimal, your Computer system has to continue to keep that existing facts stored someplace else, which can substantially sluggish down your workflow and load occasions. This is significantly notable in computationally large tasks, these as video clip encoding and high-top quality art generation.

Whether or not you are looking to upgrade or you are on the lookout to harvest the RAM from one particular Computer to use in a different, it helps to know what kind of RAM your system is working with. That is doubly accurate now that Intel’s 12th-gen motherboards can use either DDR4 or DDR5 RAM, and AMD’s impending Ryzen 7000 CPUs will make the change to DDR5. There are a handful of strategies to figure that critical facts out!

In Windows 10 and 11

You can uncover basic information about your RAM by way of your system’s About website page and by way of the General performance tab on your Endeavor Manager.

Right here are two basic solutions to obtain the About web page:

• Press the critical mixture Get + Pause/Break
• Kind “About your PC” in the Windows Get started menu lookup

To access the Endeavor Supervisor, here are three basic choices:

• Press the critical blend Ctrl + Change + Escape
• Push the critical blend Ctrl + Alt + Delete and select “Task Manager”
• Form “Task Manager” in the Home windows Start menu lookup

These two techniques will supply you with the most simplistic view of your PC’s RAM information, primarily exhibiting how considerably RAM you at present have, together with some RAM speed information. If this is not more than enough information for what you’re searching to do, then you could want to check out out the Home windows Administration Instrumentation command-line utility, or wmic.

In get to use wmic, you require to open a Command Prompt window, which is speedily done by typing “cmd” into the Windows Start out menu lookup. Once there, you can use a “wmic MemoryChip get” command to generally pull up the info you’re seeking for.

You can come across a complete set of attributes to contain on your “wmic MemoryChip get” command listed here, but the next must include the realistic bases for most RAM identification desires:

wmic MemoryChip get MemoryType, Potential, Velocity, Configuredclockspeed, DeviceLocator, FormFactor, Manufacturer, Serialnumber, Partnumber

This will deliver a desk with the next facts, if it is out there:

• MemoryType will report back again a quantity that aligns to a unique “type” of RAM module. 20 means it is DDR memory. DDR2 is 21. DDR3 is 24. DDR4 is 26. In some cases, this may well display a . If so, you will want to use “SMBIOSMemoryType” in its place.
• Ability will clearly show the uncooked byte worth of the RAM’s memory capacity, so anything like 8,589,934,592 will be for an 8GB RAM module.
• Velocity is the supported memory velocity price that your RAM module signifies it can assistance, which is usually any where among 800 and 3200.
• Configuredclockspeed relates to the pace at which your RAM is at this time configured to be running at.
• DeviceLocator will explain to you which bodily slot the RAM module is plugged into on your system’s motherboard.
• FormFactor is the bodily form sort of the RAM module. This will commonly be the selection 8 for DIMM modules identified on desktop PCs or the amount 12 for laptops’ SODIMM sorts.
• Company signifies an discovered maker of the RAM module. This might show up as Not known from time to time.
• Serialnumber will give you the components serial quantity for that certain adhere of RAM, which is typically only related when dealing with the producer for troubleshooting reasons.
• Partnumber gives the manufacturer’s design variety for that unique RAM module, which can be quite practical with the enable of a Google search to establish the RAM adhere you have and regardless of whether or not you can acquire it once again.

Extra software package alternatives

A lot of the higher than details is also available with the aid of some third-party computer software, these as CPU-Z and Speccy.

In CPU-Z, you’ll want to use the “Memory” and “SPD” tabs to see information and facts about your RAM. Memory will demonstrate you memory type and existing frequency information and facts. The SPD tab, which stands for “serial presence detect,” gives info similar to the RAM modules on their own including the manufacturer and aspect variety details.

In Speccy, you will want to go to the “RAM” check out from the left menu. In there, you should discover just about all of the RAM and memory details you’d will need. You might need to have to broaden the “SPD” fall-down in purchase to get far more distinct details about the RAM depending on what you’re attempting to come across. 

In Linux

You can find practically all of the info proven over through your Linux terminal by applying the following command:

• sudo dmidecode —type memory

This need to deliver a sorted checklist of details about your memory devices, aka your RAM, including size, styles, and manufacturer info.

Bodily RAM module

Most buyer RAM modules will occur with a label to detect the sort of RAM it is. Typically, these labels will either be a sticker utilized right to the adhere of RAM, engraved onto the fancy heat spreader on greater-performance modules, or could be printed right on to the circuit board. In these circumstances, you will generally obtain the aspect range, which you can then seem up with your most loved lookup motor to figure out the rest of the specs. If you simply cannot track down a label or identifier anyplace, then it might be prudent to use a single of the procedures explained higher than instead.

These choices really should aid you figure out what RAM your Personal computer is working with. If you are hunting to up grade, be certain that you are obtaining the exact type and sort element of RAM, since you simply cannot straight swap out DDR3 for DDR4 RAM without getting to also replace your motherboard. For extra facts on upgrading RAM, see our guideline on how to set up new memory in your Computer system.