Hi guys
About to upgrade my PC. I currently have 8gb made up of 3 sticks. I benched it, does this look like it will bottleneck me with i5 4670 and gtx680?
Will be gaming, trying to max out settings at 1080p.
Thanks
RAM Advice please
captaincabinets on 13/11/2013 - 13:28
Last edited 13/11/2013 - 13:40
Last edited 13/11/2013 - 13:40
Comments
Well I know very little about computers, but I know that you should get a 4th stock if your motherboard can take it so you have Dual Channel RAM.
Chances are it will make no difference. If anything taking one of the sticks out so that you have two matching may make a few percent difference.
Almost all games today are limited to 4G RAM, so any more than this just makes it quicker to Alt-Tab, doesn't make the game run any faster.
Faster RAM will add a few percent here and there, but for most games it won't be your bottleneck anyway.
Thanks guys
If you're on an i5 4670, GTX680 and 8GB of RAM, then the GTX680 will probably be the weakest link.
If you're on the Phenom X2, which the bench seems to suggest, then I'd say upgrading the CPU will be the best bet.
That's my planned upgrade. Already have the 680 though.
Heres an article on picking RAM, but basically RAM is SO fast that it will never be the bottleneck. The only thing you should worry about is the amount of it and if you've got 8GB and you're not running VMs/video processing you don't need to worry. Picking RAM that is faster than 1600Mhz will have so little effect you couldn't possibly notice other than in benchmarks.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scali…The article covers the difference RAM makes to gaming on this page
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scali…Yep, that's exactly what I always tell people.
The biggest waste of money is fast RAM.
The second biggest waste of money is excess RAM. Some people are so adamant spending $100 extra on getting 16GB over 8GB of RAM when they could have just used that amount to get a better CPU, GPU or like a bigger SSD or something.
I'm quite a power user and I've never found myself needing more than 8GB of RAM. These days I run 16GB because of quad-channel on LGA2011.
Haha agreed, bought a 16gb RAM just coz i have a 4820k… i don't think i've seen it use more then 5 or 6gbs though… i'd spend the extra money on GPU or SSD as they contribute more in gaming… though if the CPU isn't up to speed it can lower your gaming performance.
But as Bruce said, get matching sticks of RAM may net some better results then using different sticks
Yeah, I completely agree with this, it's not even about whether there are benefits or not, but it's about being able to get more with your buck if you invest in CPU or GPU.
Except for this:
http://www.corsair.com/en/blog/bf4-loves-high-speed-memory
"… . DDR3-1600 to its XMP speed of DDR3-2400 raised the average framerate a staggering 22.7% and the minimum framerate a still impressive 9.7%."
You want 16GB minimum for next gen gaming.
Unverified at the moment, could possibly be marketing from Corsair.
DDR3-1600 to its XMP speed of DDR3-2400 raised the average framerate a staggering 22.7
Benches from Anandtech seem to show otherwise.
On setups with discrete GPU's, the increase from 1333mhz RAM to 3000mhz RAM only saw an increase of 5% in gaming performance.
The case however is different if you're gaming on dual GPU setups
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell…
with variances in performance spreading to 20% or so.So unless you're dabbling in some high end Crossfire / Sli setups or using integrated graphics for gaming (high speed RAM is very beneficial for IGP), there isn't a need to go for uber-high-speed memory since the ceiling to gaming performance still lies mostly with the GPU.
In any case, the take-home point from the article seems to be that 1600mhz RAM should be avoided and you should buy 1833mhz memory (minimum) since there isn't much of a difference in cost.
Case in point — MSY sells 2133mhz 8GB of G.Skill memory at $98, which is only a few dollars more expensive than the 1600mhz Ripjaws. If your motherboard supports the spec, then there's no reason you should avoid getting the faster variety.
Hey mate,
any idea as to how these results translate to 1080+ gaming for nvidia as well? if i can get up to 20% boost with high memory i need some new ram lol… currently at 16gb @ 2133Mhz
1080+ is not the issue. Basically what it comes down to is if your GPU is extremely high spec for the load then memory may start to become an issue, but you are probably running faster than your screen anyway.
haha yeah thats true, running 100+ on all games. I do plan on getting a G-Sync monitor or perhaps a 1440 monitor (if g-sync is a flop) so i may need the boost for later
Depends on what your motherboard can handle. Your MB documentation will specify the fastest RAM it can handle and assuming it is a fairly recent MB, then you should have 4 RAM slots and ideally you will install RAM in pairs. If you have 4 slots but have only put 3 sticks in, then two of those sticks will be working in parallel, but the other stick in solo mode…so you now have RAM operating at 2 different speeds, which means that processing will drop back to the slowest speed so everything lives harmoniously…you might find that if you remove one stick that your machine speeds up!!! You'll have to remove the correct stick to check this…generally if you look at the slots numbered 1,2,3,4…you'll populate slots 1 & 3 with two sticks of RAM (they'll also usually be colour-coded in such a way that it's clear which slots are "matched"
I don't think RAM has any bearing on gaming, it's VRAM you should be looking at i believe… RAM will only be used if VRAM can not hold the info i think. But if you are looking to upgrade your RAM… i'd suggest get two of the same sticks?
Please correct me if i'm wrong.