4gb vs 8gb for todays games?

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Sheikh

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Will there be a difference? Do you actually need 8gb? I play mostly world of tanks, dota 2.
 
For those games, likely not. However, there are lots of complaints on the net about DOTA 2 having memory leaks and using obscene amounts of memory, so it might not be a bad idea.

For other big AAA titles, 8GB has been the minimum recommended install for several years now. Main reason being since the advent of superfetch with Windows Vista, Win7, and Win8, MS operating systems have a habit of caching everything possible into RAM but will unload unneeded info from memory as necessary. All that causes hits to the hard drive for reads and writes, thus unnecessary slowdown (even if it is miniscule). Combine that with 64 bit games that will use more than 2GB of RAM and you can surpass 4GB of use very easy. 8GB just allows you some breathing room so you just don't have to worry about it anymore.

If you are like me and like to be lazy about programs you leave open or just a power user in general, 16GB is the minimum recommended.

DDR3 was dirt cheap a few years ago, but the prices are rising. Maxing it out now before DDR4 becomes the main type of RAM in the next few years would be a wise decision.
 
8 GB recommend, 4 GB minimum. That's what my thinking is. It will be a step up in 2 to 4 years, 8 GB minimum, 16 GB recommended.
 
Not many 2x2 kits of the higher end faster memory since 2x4 seems to be the norm now.
That said I have 8G and so far in games like Skyrim I am only using about 1.2gigs so I have plenty
of spare memory.
Even with dozens of tabs opened up in FF and running programs I can't even come close to consuming 50%.
 
You can get away with 4gb, but with current prices, unless you already have 4gb, I would go with 2x4gb.
 
I wouldn't put less than 8 in a new build. 64-bit allows more memory use, and we're starting to see 64-bit games. Also, Best Buy etc. have been selling 8GB machines for a while now, and game devs develop for what they expect people to have.
 
If you are building today don't go less than 8GB. RAM is cheap, it's a no brainer. I haven't used less than 6GB in 5 years.
 
As I'm now back to building systems for others, I recommend 16GB to everyone, always 2x8 so there's room for expansion. The way I see it, you're going to have to buy it eventually anyway, so why not put off the misery of winding up with problems down the road and having to figure out if it's because you don't have enough memory. Simply remove one part of the puzzle before it becomes one. Oh, and I do something perhaps considered weird; I rotate my memory modules every year, assuming that one gets the most use, whichever one is in the slot that the computer assigns as 'first' used. And I've never had a memory component failure (of course, I've been buying the best I could find for a long time, so I'm sure that, as well as making sure everything in my case is as cold as I can keep it, has a lot to do with it as well.
 
There is no need to buy 16gb to upgrade eventually. By the time gaming systems absolutely must have more than 16gb, it would be well beyond the lifetime of current systems. As of right now, there is hardly any need to upgrade any gaming system beyond 4gb. Would it be better to upgrade to 8gb? Probably. Is it necessary to play 99% of games? Absolutely not. 16gb is just needless overkill and a waste of money for the normal gaming system.
 
Tsumi said:
There is no need to buy 16gb to upgrade eventually. By the time gaming systems absolutely must have more than 16gb, it would be well beyond the lifetime of current systems.
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That about sums it up. The exception though might be if you can partition the memory into some 10gb ram drive (too small for full games, but maybe certain parts could utilize it) and then use the extra 6gb as normal memory. But yeah you can still get away with 4gb. I wouldn't recommend it though as it's on the edge, and 8gb is cheap.
 
I had 4gigs on my laptop and while playing LoL I noticed the system was chugging along. Turns out I was capping out on available RAM with all my background programs like pandora, etc. Upgraded it to 8gigs and haven't had any issues since.
 
Like I said, if you already have 4gb, it's not really worth upgrading at the moment outside of rare circumstances. If you're starting fresh, you might as well do 8, as cost difference is low.
 
I did a test today to see if my CPU was bottlenecking my 660gtx and I also looked at memory, I have 4gbs of ram and none of the games I tried went above 3gbs.

So far I tried Tomb Raider, Bioshock Inf, and Witcher 2, all maxed in windowed mode with task manager open. I saw a test of BF4 and it never exceed 4gbs either.

I had an order of 2x2gb sitting in my cart and ended up removing it and will stay with 4gb until its truly needed, at $50 for 2x2 its certainly not THAT cheap. By the time games actually use 8gbs we may have moved on to DDR4.

If you are building something new then I would recommend the 2x4gb sticks, but if you are looking to fill your last couple of slots as an upgrade then dont bother with 2x2gbs and save your money for ddr4.
 
for people (like me) with triple channel memory, is 6GB the equivalent to 8GB in terms of 'recommended'...most game requirements don't take into account people with triple channel memory and either give 4GB or 8GB multiples
 
For people like me 8gb to 16gb is the bare minimum. Modded games eat through RAM and VRAM very fast. You may not find games using 4GB now but with next gen around the corner, 8GB will be a comfortable minimum.
 
Buying hardware based on "game future proofing" is rarely a smart thing to do.
 
I would go for 8gb. Though to be fair I got it when RAM was cheap in 2012. Things to bear in mind is that DDR4 is coming sometime in 2016 along with PCI-E 4.0 and Sata Express if you decide to do a rig upgrade. That means DDR3 prices will go up when supplies diminish.
 
'Buying hardware' is a bit ambiguous to put it, RAM is fairly cheap these days and it's no reason not to spend that extra $20-50 for that next step up from 4GB to 8GB or possibly 8GB to 16GB, RAM (at least not until another few years) doesn't get outdated like CPU's and graphics cards.

Imho buying just 4GB of RAM to play the latest games when the rest of your rig is fairly high end is just plain stupid, I don't know how you would live with it, besides maybe 3 or 4 games that I have nothing else goes over 2.5GB of RAM of usage, throw in maybe 1-1.5GB for windows to play with I've lived with just 4GB and the performance plain sucks. If OP's priority is to play lightweight games such as those from 2005 with mixed office based load than 4GB is plenty, but dedicated for playing games, no way.

Having that extra RAM doesn't hurt, 16GB ain't much, if OP were to invest in 32GB then yeah bit overkill there. The idea is to have a bit of space not limit yourself within a specified amount just because you can't use that much.

Throwing in my 0.02
 
Have you read anything I posted at all? It's quite clear you aren't reading anything except the last post. Either that, or your comprehension/connect the dot skills are clearly lacking.
 
Yeah I only read the last post. The rest of the forum is coming up as garbled messages on my phone, so can't really see anything. Need [H] on Tapatalk.
 
One stick of Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB is $42 on amazon, so 8GB is $84. Each 2GB stick of same is $26, so 4GB is $52. I don't get two-stick kits; if one stick is bad, you have to return both! That said, browsing around on newegg, I see 4GB in a two-stick kit for as low as $48, and 8GB in a two-stick kit for as low as $65.

In any case, you're looking at 8GB being somewhere between $17 and $32 dollars more than 4GB. This is small potatoes. Get 8GB.

The historic low for DDR3 was Christmas 2012 when 8GB kits went for $25. Good times. DDR3 should slowly creep upwards indefinitely. Don't expect it to ever get cheaper; some disaster (natural or political) could possibly make it spike higher.

As for more than 8GB for gaming, the games that need it are few and far between, and usually only do it because they've got unfixed memory leaks, or have been modded up to an insanely extreme level.
 
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evilsofa said:
I don't get two-stick kits; if one stick is bad, you have to return both! .
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Which RAM manufacturer do you know requires that? I know for a fact that Corsair doesn't require that as I just RMA'd a single stick of RAM that came from a pack of two. The other stick worked just fine but the other stick was troublesome. Corsair approved the RMA and now I have that replacement RAM in my hands now.
 
Tsumi said:
Buying hardware based on "game future proofing" is rarely a smart thing to do.
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I think right now thats kinda where we're at with CPU and memory. There's still people using 2500 and 2600k cpus.. And they've been out what? 4 years i think? With the new cpus not completely justifying an upgrade for what little improvement you get.

I mean, toss 16GBs in with my 3770K and it ought to be good for a couple years given Intel (or AMD) doesn't come out with something substantial. Overclock it and it should last even longer.
 
Dangman said:
Which RAM manufacturer do you know requires that? I know for a fact that Corsair doesn't require that as I just RMA'd a single stick of RAM that came from a pack of two. The other stick worked just fine but the other stick was troublesome. Corsair approved the RMA and now I have that replacement RAM in my hands now.
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The last time I had bad RAM to return was in the mid-2000s, a pair of G.Skill DDR2 sticks that I got from Newegg, and I had to return both sticks and wait two weeks for the replacements, so that computer was down for two weeks. That was also when RAM was at an historic high and so expensive that just buying another set was unthinkable. Bad times.
 
polonyc2 said:
for people (like me) with triple channel memory, is 6GB the equivalent to 8GB in terms of 'recommended'...most game requirements don't take into account people with triple channel memory and either give 4GB or 8GB multiples
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no one?...bueller?
 
evilsofa said:
The last time I had bad RAM to return was in the mid-2000s, a pair of G.Skill DDR2 sticks that I got from Newegg, and I had to return both sticks and wait two weeks for the replacements, so that computer was down for two weeks. That was also when RAM was at an historic high and so expensive that just buying another set was unthinkable. Bad times.
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Maybe G.Skill and Corsair have different RMA practices.
Quartz-1 said:
When one stick of my 32 GB kit turned out to be bad I had to RMA the whole set.
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Which manufacturer?
polonyc2 said:
no one?...bueller?
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If it's enough for your current usage, it's fine.
 
Dangman said:
Which manufacturer?
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It was Corsair. Note that I'm in the UK and Corsair UK may have different practices from Corsair US.

Anyway, having 8 GB means that I need not worry about closing all my other application windows when I run a memory-intensive task like a game, and having 16 GB or 32 GB means that I can leave VMs open.
 
I had crucial or corsair stick go bad and they "recommended" that I rma both.
I went with the advanced rma so it didn't matter, they sent me a new pair and I mailed them back the old pair.
This was a few years ago and that was the only time I had to rma memory, it wasn't even mine, was in a system I ordered and built for a client.
 
i used to have 2x4gb sticks and when the price dropped a while back for another set.. i bought another pair...i sort of feel like an idiot...

but now i use 6GB of ram as a drive... which isnt so bad...
 
Sheikh said:
Will there be a difference? Do you actually need 8gb? I play mostly world of tanks, dota 2.
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Do you need 8GB to play those particular games? Nah...

Does having 8GB allow other background processes to run more smoothly while a game is running? Yeah.

Ultimately it's your call whether or not you run with 8 or 4.

Personally, I'd go with the higher number since I tend to have other apps running in the background while I game. (things like DPS trackers, Firefox, my Media Player, etc...)
 
I only have 6gb and I get along just fine. 4gb is definitely on the low side for a home rig tho, plus, RAM is cheap so just go with 8gb.
 
Tried out Crysis 3 and it was one of the lowest when it came to ram usage, I think it went up to like 2.3gbs (it is the only game to max out my CPU though, I dont know if that lowers usable memory). None of my games want to go above 3gbs and mostly hover around 2.6gbs.

8gbs really just isnt used by games right now, if you already have 4gbs then theres way better stuff to spend $50 on, like an SSD which would completely blow the shit out of 4gbs extra of ram. But if you are building from scratch then the 2x4gb pack is a much better deal.
 
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jlbenedict said:
4gb = Minimum
8gb = Optimal
16gb = Overkill
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Pssh, I've got 32gb. That's overkill.

Todays games are certainly hovering around the 6-8GB mark (depending on which game genres exactly, and whether or not they're running a 64 bit client). We see marked increases every year, usually the minimum first, and then the maximum jumps up - minimum referring to required, maximum referring to recommended. (To clarify, next year - or later this year even - you'll see the 6-8 go to just 8, and then you'll see 8-10 or 8-12, followed them by just 10 or 10-12, and so on.)

Like everyone else said RAM is cheap compared to anything else in your computer. Most new motherboards with higher end processors support up to 64 GB of memory, and there's signs that the new Haswell-e will support 128 GB of RAM (DDR 4 at that too). We'll see if that's indeed true or not, but bottom line is if you're considering between 4 or 8, go 8. I'd say plan for 16.

As a hobby / personal activity, I build computers for a few people every month / bi-weekly. For non gaming PC's I always put in 8GB as most people want to buy and forget. Price difference of about $20 or $30 to go from 4-8 is a no brainer. For gaming PC's I don't even think of anything under 16GB, especially if you're going to use that machine for the next 3-5 years. When haswell-e comes out I'm definitely going 64GB, and depending on memory prices at the time, I might just do the whole 128. Why? Bragging rights mostly - and wouldn't it be fantastic to run the whole OS + the game in memory! But it's one less thing I'll need to upgrade down the road - and I can multi task all I want.
 
I've needed more than 4GB for a few years now since I was playing WoW daily.

Just having the game idling in the background and having all my browser tabs and other programs running would be pushing me over 4gb and hitting the page file.

Putting a 2nd 2x2gb DDR2 kit in was a huge quality of life increase at the time.

8GB is what I recommend for anybody that will be playing games while leaving most of their other programs running in the background.

16GB for people like most of us in these forums is just because we might mess around with some stuff like VMs and ramdisks and we also dislike having empty slots staring back at us, cram as much as we can into our gear!
 
Dangman said:
Which RAM manufacturer do you know requires that? I know for a fact that Corsair doesn't require that as I just RMA'd a single stick of RAM that came from a pack of two. The other stick worked just fine but the other stick was troublesome. Corsair approved the RMA and now I have that replacement RAM in my hands now.
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Kingston requires you to send in the whole kit if 1 stick is bad. Crucial only requires you to send in the defective DIMM. I haven't sold Corsair in a while so I'll take your word for it
 
I went from 4 to 8 and can not tell the difference, fps testing didn't show any difference either.
4 vs 8 is like hdd vs ssd when it comes to fps in fps games in that I can not tell the difference, even when both are used (8gb and ssd) I see no advantage other than a lighter wallet.(if that's what your into)
 
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