Off Topic Discussions

[BigAl01]

Microsoft plans to change memory measuring metrics in Windows 11 Task Manager from the traditional 'MHz' to the new, more precise 'MT/s' with a new update.  It seems Microsoft is finally testing the display of memory speeds as MT/s (mega-transfers per second) over the traditional MHz (megahertz) in the Windows 11 Task Manager.

Now that's some cool looking memory.

PhantomOcean3, a self-proclaimed Windows sleuth, noticed that Microsoft is now testing showing MT/s for RAM instead of MHz in the Windows 11 Task Manager performance tab. Why is this important?  

We see the data transfer speed of computer memory (RAM) advertised with the MHz metric, which represents how many millions of cycles per second the memory module can perform, with each of those cycles being an action on the memory module itself, like storing and retrieving data.

This means that if you've got a 3200MHz memory module performing 3.2 billion cycles per second, compared against running the memory at 2400MHz, performing just 2.4 billion cycles per second. But, new technologies like DDR memory increase the data transfer rate without boosting clock speeds -- MHz -- which means it's less accurate measuring memory like this.

Memory companies and operating system companies -- namely, Microsoft -- have moved to the performance metric of MT/s (mega-transfers per second), which is the number of data transfers in millions per second.

If you want to test this new feature, it is rolling out into the Windows 11 Beta preview build as part of built 22635.3570. However, if you wish to test this feature now, you can use ViVeTool to enable it using these instructions:

Download ViVeTool and extract it to a folder.

Open an elevated command prompt and change into the folder you extracted ViVeTool.

Type this command and press enter:  vivetool /enable /id:38476224,48380607

If the Task Manager does not show MT/s, you may need to reboot Windows 11.

It should be noted that enabling these features using ViVeTool could cause instability on your device.  If this is a production computer, you may want to wait until the feature rolls out to your device rather than manually enabling it.

Modified Task Manager. It doesn't lie.

[ajlueke]

For most of us, that change won't really amount to anything.  Most RAM was already marketed at speeds assuming you were using it in dual channel mode.  DDR4 3200 is actually the MT/s, since the individual modules run at 1600 MHz.

It might be more meaningful in four and eight channel systems for professional users. 

[FunkZ]

I suppose Microsoft is making this change as they're tired of fielding "trouble" calls about "why Task Manager isn't showing the 'correct' speed?"

As mentioned it's the memory manufacturers who started this marketing and the confusion will likely continue as there are plenty of 3rd party applications that still reference the actual clock speed of the memory.