8gb vs 16gb

V

Vatican

Weaksauce
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I bought 2x4gb of g.skill ddr3 2133 cas 9 during black friday for around $54 for my new build. At first i debated whether on getting 16gb but in the end decided to save the money and put it towards my graphic card.

Now that i have some spare cash available I was wondering if i should purchase another 2 sticks to make it 16gb, I play most modern games out at the moment and do rendering in sony vegas, that's about it. I've heard mixed opinions everywhere on the 8gb vs 16gb not making a difference for anything at all in real world performance. I'd like to hear your opinions.
 
I would very highly support making the upgrade to 16GB of memory.

When I was playing Battlefield 4 on 8GB, I kept getting "Windows is running out of memory" errors as the game used an incredible amount of it. (Granted, Crossfire + three 1080P displays might have used more memory?)

Regardless, any extra memory will be used to cache often used programs. Just remember, there is no such thing as too much memory! :D :D :D
 
Is it necessary, no. Though monitoring memory usage would give a better idea.
But, while 8 GB is adequate (probably all needed) 16 GB appears very popular. One article I read claims 16 GB aids SSD something (longevity, performance, I forget). And I would. Probably.
otoh if you do not have an SSD or want a game or software I do not see adding 8 GB as something that can not wait.
 
With the price of DDR3 being what it is, I'd say no. I bought my 16GB of RAM when DDR3 cost half as much as it does now. I couldn't justify it at current pricing. I don't think you get out what you're putting in.

I think you're better off saving your money for something else. If you don't have an SSD, for example, I'd find that a better investment. Or, save it for the next time around, when DDR4 replaces 3 as the standard.
 
If you can return it i would get 2x8gb sticks for 16 and you can still upgrade to 32 of you needed.
 
OP, I woudn't get more if you don't need more especially with DDR4 out and making inroads. If you're not running out of memory, then you won't see a single iota of experience improvement. A case could be made for a RAM Drive, but in the end, that doesn't justify spending another $75-100. I got 4GB of my memory in a ram drive in my system, but i feel no user improvement with it on as opposed when i didn't have it running.

Surely there's something else in your build where the extra cash could make a greater impact?
 
I don't even come close to 8GB in use while gaming. No need for 16 imho.
 
For gaming = utter waste of money.

Take a look the next time you game at your memory consumption.
I doubt you ever go over 6 GB of actual use.
 
I hope the original poster has a good SSD drive in their computer. If not, get one.... you will see improvement right there.

As for going from 8 GB to 16GB.... you won't see improvement on gaming. However, some other applications (Virtualbox) would definitely appreciate the additional memory. The increase in memory just means that there will be less paging to the disk. Anything beyond 16GB, and you better not be running Windows 7 Home Premium.

atp1916 said:
OP, I woudn't get more if you don't need more especially with DDR4 out and making inroads. If you're not running out of memory, then you won't see a single iota of experience improvement.
Click to expand...
I think DDR3 still has life left. The only processors that support DDR4 at this time is Intel's X99 processor AFAIK, and I believe that DDR3 will be around for another 2-3 years.
 
Gaming - No. Rendering - yes.

Plus if you have headroom in ram you can always install some ram caching software (like Samsung's RAPID mode for their SSDs). If you are still spinning regular HDs, there are 3rd party software that does the same thing too, I believe. FWIW.
 
Sorry for the late reply, yes I have 2 SSD's on my system however space is so limited on them that I can hardly install every game to it. I have to resort to buying an extra mechanical drive for my videos and extra games, I'll hold off on the extra 8gb of ram for now.
 
Well my $0.02 would be to get the extra RAM before DDR4 starts to take mainstream market share and the prices of DDR3 go up. I think it depends on how long you keep your computer in order for more than 16gb to be relevant today (also if you are doing some crazy rendering/encoding, etc). Today I do not think you will notice too much of a difference in performance, but down the road in 5 years or so I think you may.

My old system was an overclocked q9450 and truth be told the only thing that really held it back in today's content was the measly 4gb RAM that at the time of building was more than adequate. Keep in mind I upgrade my GPU about every 2-2.5 years. Had I had 8gb of memory I probably could have got another few years out of it, but quality DDR2 memory is very expensive/non-existent now that DDR3 took over.

In my current x99 system with 16gb DDR4, you can bet I will be upgrading to 32gb when it becomes more mainstream and prices come down to about $150 for another 16gb. I intend for this machine to last 6-8 years with the same intermittent GPU upgrades.
 
SoulCreatr said:
Well my $0.02 would be to get the extra RAM before DDR4 starts to take mainstream market share and the prices of DDR3 go up. I think it depends on how long you keep your computer in order for more than 16gb to be relevant today (also if you are doing some crazy rendering/encoding, etc). Today I do not think you will notice too much of a difference in performance, but down the road in 5 years or so I think you may.

My old system was an overclocked q9450 and truth be told the only thing that really held it back in today's content was the measly 4gb RAM that at the time of building was more than adequate. Keep in mind I upgrade my GPU about every 2-2.5 years. Had I had 8gb of memory I probably could have got another few years out of it, but quality DDR2 memory is very expensive/non-existent now that DDR3 took over.

In my current x99 system with 16gb DDR4, you can bet I will be upgrading to 32gb when it becomes more mainstream and prices come down to about $150 for another 16gb. I intend for this machine to last 6-8 years with the same intermittent GPU upgrades.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this. The transition to DDR4 will definitely drive ddr3 prices up, just like the ddr2 --> ddr3 transition years back. I just hope ddr4 prices will eventually reach an affordable price point, like ddr3 did in 2012 (just before the memory factory "fires"). Rendering does indeed take ram. For example, I've pushed solidworks to 11.5gb ram on one model, and it was a personal project. If I ran that + adobe cc (which I also use frequently) I'd easily push into the 20's.
 
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