Glossary/System/Memory bandwidth
Memory bandwidth
Memory bandwidth is the rate at which data moves between the CPU and system RAM, limiting workloads whose data does not fit in cache.
Also known as RAM bandwidth, system memory bandwidth
Not measurable from a browser
A browser cannot read temperatures, power draw, fan speed, VRAM capacity, clock frequency or native FLOPS. For a direct reading use a native monitor such as HWiNFO64, GPU-Z or lm-sensors. SystemCheck contributes the other half: whether the condition is costing you throughput, measured as decay and consistency.
Bandwidth is memory clock times bus width times channel count. Running a dual-channel-capable board with a single stick halves it, one of the most common and most costly build mistakes, and one that costs 10-20% in games and far more in memory-bound work.
Bandwidth matters most for workloads that stream data too large for cache: video encoding, large simulations, integrated graphics sharing system memory, and any many-core workload where all cores pull from memory simultaneously. Latency, a separate property, matters more for game simulation and pointer-chasing code.
A browser cannot read your memory speed, channel configuration, or bandwidth utilisation. Check those in CPU-Z or Task Manager's memory tab. What SystemCheck can show is the consequence: if multi-core scaling in your report is far below what your core count suggests, memory bandwidth saturation is one of the standard explanations, alongside a power limit and background contention.
Related terms