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Computer memory is one of most important hardware in a computer, and it is an indispensable piece of hardware. What is role of computer memory? The following article will help you understand basics of computer memory, let's take a look!

What does computer memory do?

Memory is bridge between other devices and CPU, and all programs on computer run in memory.

Its function is to temporarily store computational data in CPU and communicate with hard disk and other devices. While computer is running, CPU will transfer data that needs to be calculated to memory for calculation. After calculation is completed, CPU will transfer result. Therefore, memory performance has a great impact on computer.

Memory map structure

First, take a look at memory structure. This PCB is a PCB. The black elements on this PCB are memory chips or memory particles. The gold ones on bottom are gold fingers inserted into motherboard. memory slot on memory board, capacitors are also soldered, if they are lost, memory will not work normally.

There is a gap in middle of golden memory finger. It's an anti-fool hole. This is a design to prevent memory errors of different generations from being written to a memory slot.

I would like to say here, just like DDR4 memory in picture, two sides of its golden fingers are curved instead of straight golden fingers. This is a unique design of DDR4 memory, and it is not a quality problem.

Memory specifications

There is DDR, DDR2, DDR3, DDR3L, DDR4 and even earlier SDRAM memory. The memory is easy to identify, you just need to look at memory sticker or position of cutout.

The positions of anti-fool ports of different memory modules are different, so they cannot be inserted mixed. If they are forced to be inserted mixed, there is a danger of burning memory module and motherboard.

Also, if it's different types of memory, it can't be used on same motherboard. While there are some weird motherboards with two generations of memory slots at same time, as long as you use that generation's memory, that means you can't plug in another generation's memory and use it at same time.

Memory can also have wide and narrow bands, but there is no difference in performance between noodles and double-sided noodles. Just for some chipsets, such as G41 chipset, it does not support single-sided memory.

Memory capacity and particles

Let's talk about memory capacity. The capacity of one memory chip can be determined by number on memory chip. However, because numbering and naming rules are too complicated, and there are differences between different manufacturers and ages, it is meaningless for everyone, we can directly compare numbers with Baidu.

Generally speaking, unit amount of memory multiplied by number of its particles is total capacity of memory card. The larger total volume, more programs it can run simultaneously.

If you only use OFFICE, PS, QQ, surf Internet and watch videos, then 4 GB of memory is hardly enough.

If you play large standalone games, AE rendering, 3DSMAX, virtual machines, etc., you will need at least 8 GB or more, and more better.

Different memory sizes also need to be selected for different systems, since a 32-bit home system can recognize a maximum of 4G memory, and final display shows that available memory is about 3.75G. Therefore, Brother Plumb suggested that users with 4G memory and above install a 64-bit system.

Default common frequencies (unit: MHz)

SDRAM: 100,133,166,200

DDR: 200,266,333,400

DDR2: 400 533 667 800 1066

DDR3: 800 1066 1333 1600 1866 2133

DDR4: 2133 2400 2666 3200 or more

On motherboards that support overclocking, we can manually increase memory frequency, memory runs at a higher frequency, which can increase memory bandwidth. Especially for main video card, improvement is especially obvious. Since main video card allocates part of memory as video memory, memory frequency is frequency of video memory, and memory bit width is bit width of video memory.

Memory with different frequencies, in multi-channel mode, they will only work at lowest frequency. If you use frequency memory of 2400 and 2666 to form two channels at same time, then low-frequency memory will hold you back, composition of dual channel is also 2400 frequencies. However, under normal conditions, it's hard to feel performance gap between 2400 and 2666 memory.

The above is a general basic knowledge about computer memory, I hope it can help everyone.