Did You Always Feel Limited By The RAM Reporting In Windows? All That Is About To Change

Microsoft has a solid plan to let you quickly figure out the exact speed of the computer’s memory.

Key Takeaways

Windows 11’s Task Manager now shows memory speed in MT/s for more accurate data representation.
DDR memory transfers data twice per cycle, making MHz inaccurate for measuring memory speed.
Windows 11 users can access new features by registering their PC to the Windows Insider beta.

Some of the best-quality RAM comes with great speed, but it isn’t easy to find the exact speed in the product specs section on e-commerce stores like Amazon. Windows 11’s memory performance tab doesn’t show accurate information about your computer’s memory speed, either. To fix that problem, Microsoft has introduced a change in how PCs report memory speed in the latest Windows 11 Insider build.

A new feature in Windows 11 Task Manager provides more accurate memory speed

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Image showing the nature of waveforms of SDR and DDR memories — Image credit: Kingstone

If you navigate to the memory performance tab in Task Manager on your Windows 11 PC, you’ll see that the unit Microsoft uses to describe the speed is MHz. However, in Windows 11 beta build 22635.3570, MHz (Megahertz) has been changed to MT/s (Megatransfers per second) for better representation of the memory speed.

So, how does changing the unit to MT/s give you more accurate data? Well, the answer lies within how modern DDR memory shows speed per clock cycle. When SDR (Single Data Rate) memory was more common in earlier computer systems, 100 MHz (100 million cycles per second) was equivalent to 100 MT/s, because data transfer happens once per cycle. But in the case of DDR memory, MHz only represents the clock speed and not the effective transfer rate.

Screenshot showing Windows 11 Task Manager

However, DDR memory transfers data twice per cycle, unlike SDR memory. Simply put, 3,200 MHz translates to an effective transfer speed of 3,200 MT/s in SDR RAM and 6,400 MT/s in DDR RAM. SDR memory is no longer in use on computers, but unfortunately, the old way of reporting memory speed is still being used, even though modern Windows PCs don’t come with SDR RAM. Luckily for Windows 11 users, that’s about to change. However, whether Microsoft will roll out more accurate reporting of memory speed to Windows 11 24H2 first remains a question.

More Exciting features coming soon to Windows 11

Besides getting the speed in MT/s second, you’ll also be able to duplicate tabs in File Explorer by right-clicking the tab you want to duplicate if you’re running the latest beta build. Additionally, there are plenty of new features currently in preview, which will be rolled out to the general public later in the year. You can get your hands on them right now by registering your PC to the Windows Insider Program.