16GB the new "Standard"?

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UMASS

Gawd
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Hi All: I've been buying my parts for my new build come this September. My last item I need is RAM. I'll be using WIN7 Professional 64-Bit (Again. Love this OS system!) for my next build. I'm using 8GB RAM now & I feel it's enough. I'll be bumping-up to PC3 2400 (from PC1600) Should I go with 16GB? DDR3 2400 is fairly cheap right now. This G. Skill is on my Gigabyte recommended list.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231589&cm_re=ddr3-_-20-231-589-_-Product

Any insight would be appreciated.
 
Hey there!

It really depends on your usage. Do you multitask a lot? If you are finding that 8gb is enough now, you are likely to continue that trend. How much does task manager show you as using when you are at the peak of your activities?

If the computer is only running a single task like a game and that is all, you will have few issues with 8gb. When you get into trouble is when you are also Web browsing with multiple tabs open or streaming your game play to twitch, etc.

For me, my usage exceeds 8gb frequently, so I must go 16gb. Another thing to consider is that getting 16gb now as a matching set will be easy and you say the price is right as well. Ddr4 is poised to take over so you may have trouble upgrading to 16gb later on.

Food for thought!
 
When specing out computers for myself / clients, I try to stick with 2GB of memory per thread, minimum. There isn't a real reason for this, but it makes for a good baseline.
i5 (4c/4t) = 8GB
i7 (4c/8t) = 16GB
Dual six-core Xeons (12c/24t) = 48GB

Granted, if your workload requires more memory, awesome, upgrade the hell out of it.
 
1600 will be plenty, honestly...unless you are in the <1% that will be hammering the IGP or have a very specialized/specific program/s that show real-world (non-synthetic/benchmarked) gains with faster memory.

I'd recommend just re-using your current 1600 and maybe even adding more Blackline, say a 2x8GB kit so you can still run dual channel with your existing 2x4GB kit.


Depending on your existing voltage:
1.5V Blackline

1.35V Blackline
 
I had 8GB of 2400 installed and 4GB of 1600 sat in a drawer and saw my ram use creep to max on occasion.
So I slowed it all down to 1600 and have 12GB installed now and didnt notice any performance drop.

I have not come across any need for more, most games are fine with 8GB.
A few can make use of a bit more.
(this was on a 290x and now a GTX980)
If you have a GTX970 you will most likely need more than 8GB due to how it uses system ram to make up for the last 1GB vram low performance, this eats ram.
 
I say 8 gb is still the standard. Heck, you can get by 90% of the time with 4 gb. It just completely depends on what you do with the computer. A basic web browsing computer doesn't need more than 4 gb. A HTPC doesn't really need more than 4 gb either.

You aren't going to see any real performance benefits going with RAM faster than 1866 mhz CAS 9. Investing in RAM now is a poor choice as DDR3 is essentially EOL.
 
8GB is a good spot right now. It's more than enough for everything. 4GB on the other hand is really showing its age. It depends on what you do but I can tell you right now that my work laptop is 4GB and I hate its guts. 4GB is simply very insufficient for a dev station. Open a few IDEs and SQL programs and maybe a browser. You're done. I don't really understand how this happens considering I should not be hitting 4GB that easily even with all that open (based on what I see in task manager...), but it will happen. So I'd say a reasonable baseline is 8GB, minimum, for this day and age. 16GB is unnecessary. Technically 6 or 7GB is probably fine, too. It's just you can't really get to exactly that number easily. The only reason I have 16GB in my main rig is that I got in on some 50$ Hotdeal in the day for a set of 4 nice Crucial sticks.
 
I agree with the proposition that 8GB is "standard", and 16GB "enhanced". It also matters whether you have dual/triple/quad support.
 
If you're getting a new PC I wouldn't consider less than 16GB. Modern OSs are getting better at using idle memory to improve performance, and many games can push 8GB+ on their own. Especially if you've got other demanding applications running in the background, or just chrome with 40 tabs open, the extra memory can make a difference.

Personally I like to go with 16-32GB and turn off virtual memory entirely.
 
major_foad said:
If you're getting a new PC I wouldn't consider less than 16GB. Modern OSs are getting better at using idle memory to improve performance, and many games can push 8GB+ on their own. Especially if you've got other demanding applications running in the background, or just chrome with 40 tabs open, the extra memory can make a difference.

Personally I like to go with 16-32GB and turn off virtual memory entirely.
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Caching isn't necessary for good performance, and is mostly mitigated by a SSD anyways. A 512mb page file doesn't take up that much space and ensures random problems.
 
I feel like whatever is at the ~$50 price point is standard. Like 4GB of DDR2 back in the day. Today it's 8GB DDR3 , but when DDR4 is very mainstream and cost effective it might be 16GB from higher density sticks.
 
Most users still don't need more than 4GB, but we've standardized to 8GB on laptops at work. For real, I'll say it with even greater emphasis in relationship to this: nobody is going to need more than 8GB, and 4GB is still plenty sufficient.

My reasoning is based on the fact that the basic productivity tasks have long exceeded the minimum hardware requirements (and by minimum, I mean with extra resources still available, so not like a 2GB minimum but a 4GB standard). Things like word processing, surfing the internet, listening to music, and the like shouldn't ever consume more than they need to. I still look forward to the day where word processing depends on having a system with 32GB of RAM and a 16-core Xeon CPU.

The people that are going to need more than 4GB or 8GB are those with more specialized needs. Compared to the 500+ users we have, only a fraction have legitimate need more 64-bit Excel and 4GB+ RAM availability, and two engineers who use SolidWorks Simulation who have 24-32GB RAM.

I'm not saying that 8GB won't help over 4GB -- at least for browsing the internet it will help only a little (and a little more than little for slightly-power users users).

Now a person like I could always use more RAM. I have high standards for quality so some of the things I do, even with Microsoft Office programs like Word, I need all the horsepower and performance I can get (not joking, even had to install 64-bit Office 365 instead of the default 32-bit, and have consumed all 16GB of RAM in my Gigabyte Brix).

EDIT: English fail
 
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The rest of the build and what you're using it for would help.

Also if you don't do Win 10 you'll be missing out on DX12 if you're a gamer.
 
Wow...All of you are great! I'm going with an Intel CPU (1st time I switched in years from AMD) with an i7-4970K with a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 MB. I know DDR3 is a dead-end, but look @ my specs below. I built this current box almost 5 years ago (November 2010) & it runs most of games @ maxed-out full resolution.

I must admit I play older games, so I don't need the newer DDR4 RAM. I think I'll go ahead & buy the 16GB as I do use my computer for work & have multiple screens open on the web. I think I'm going to regulate my current box for WIN-XP duties. Thanks all for all of your insight! I really do appreciate it.
 
If you've recently built your rig then there's nothing wrong with sticking to DDR3. Every current motherboard uses it so it will be around for a while. It's not like they're going to stop making it the moment DDR4 motherboards are released.
 
Lord Nassirbannipal said:
If you've recently built your rig then there's nothing wrong with sticking to DDR3. Every current motherboard uses it so it will be around for a while. It's not like they're going to stop making it the moment DDR4 motherboards are released.
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X99 is currently on DDR4. Skylake will be DDR4. Haswell is the last Intel generation that uses DDR3, it is EOL. AMD's next socket will be moving on to DDR4 as well. If new RAM is needed for a current DDR3 build, then buy it, but don't buy extra with the intent to move it to future builds.
 
Tsumi said:
X99 is currently on DDR4. Skylake will be DDR4. Haswell is the last Intel generation that uses DDR3, it is EOL. AMD's next socket will be moving on to DDR4 as well. If new RAM is needed for a current DDR3 build, then buy it, but don't buy extra with the intent to move it to future builds.
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100 series chipsets + Skylake may actually support both DDR3 and DDR4, so DDR3 may not entirely be EOL just yet.
 
From what I have read, Skylake would only support DDR3L for laptops. In any case, I wouldn't count on it.
 
Tsumi said:
From what I have read, Skylake would only support DDR3L for laptops. In any case, I wouldn't count on it.
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And that very well may be. I would not put it past Intel to only have DDR4 support for their Skylake desktop segment so as to throw memory companies a bone.
 
Tsumi said:
X99 is currently on DDR4. Skylake will be DDR4. Haswell is the last Intel generation that uses DDR3, it is EOL. AMD's next socket will be moving on to DDR4 as well. If new RAM is needed for a current DDR3 build, then buy it, but don't buy extra with the intent to move it to future builds.
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That's what I said. If you're building a new rig then it makes sense to go with DDR4. However, if you have one already and it uses DDR3 then there's nothing to worry about. With so many computers out there that still use DDR3 it's not going to fall off the face of the earth any time soon.
 
Tsumi said:
X99 is currently on DDR4. Skylake will be DDR4. Haswell is the last Intel generation that uses DDR3, it is EOL. AMD's next socket will be moving on to DDR4 as well. If new RAM is needed for a current DDR3 build, then buy it, but don't buy extra with the intent to move it to future builds.
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He's been using the same rig for the past 5 years and it's likely that he'll use this haswell for at least the next 5 years, if not longer. In that case, he should definitely buy 16GB because it's going to be 3x or more expensive when he might actually need it after a few years halfway through his rig's projected lifetime.
 
If you are a gamer or light user, just get 16GB and you will never have to worry about running out of RAM until you are ready to build your next system. Its so damn cheap right now you really have no excuse. There are games coming out now that are pushing the envelope now (GTAV using 6GB in some cases), and big video card setups need more RAM to swap memory from.

I've got 16GB now and have multiple times when I get near 12GB in use. Usually its because I have a bunch of Chrome windows open (and Chrome is a RAM whore sometimes), possibly AutoCAD or Sketchup running (minimized), then maybe taking a break to play BF4 while not closing anything down. I like not having to close everything down like its fucking 1995 all over again.

If you are a power user, doing photo/video editing, RAM drives, virtual machines, there really is no standard and you put in enough that makes you say "GOD DAMN" everytime you read the specs. These people will always find a way to use all of that RAM.
 
mope54 said:
He's been using the same rig for the past 5 years and it's likely that he'll use this haswell for at least the next 5 years, if not longer. In that case, he should definitely buy 16GB because it's going to be 3x or more expensive when he might actually need it after a few years halfway through his rig's projected lifetime.
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I personally don't see a current Haswell rig that won't be upgraded needing more than 8 gb. The trend has been moving towards more efficient computing. Windows is using less memory to do the same things as previous versions. I personally believe that by the time a game can truly make use of more than 6 gb of RAM (2 gb reserved for the OS and background), the Haswell will be outdated and in need of an upgrade. I could be wrong though, no one can see that far into the future.

I also don't see DDR3 increasing in price more than it has. From what I have seen, DDR2 has remained relatively constant from DDR3's release, if not dropped slightly. I don't expect DDR3 to cost 3x more in the future, it'll probably cost 0.9 of what it costs now.

Of course, if current work/usage patterns require more than 8 gb of RAM, go for 16 gb.
 
32GB or bust baby...lol, just kidding... I just built a new system and I put 16GB in...
 
mope54 said:
He's been using the same rig for the past 5 years and it's likely that he'll use this haswell for at least the next 5 years, if not longer. In that case, he should definitely buy 16GB because it's going to be 3x or more expensive when he might actually need it after a few years halfway through his rig's projected lifetime.
Click to expand...

Mope54: You're correct sir. This (hopefully) will last me another 5 years. I bought the 16GB G-Skill (8GBx2) kit yesterday. Might as well just bulk-up now & I'll be set. My last part is a video card. I'll wait until September for that purchase. I must admit my XFX 7870 @ 1080P resolution is still getting the job done very well.
 
Cerulean said:
Most users still don't need more than 4GB, but we've standardized to 8GB on laptops at work. For real, I'll say it with even greater emphasis in relationship to this: nobody is going to need more than 8GB, and 4GB is still plenty sufficient.

My reasoning is based on the fact that the basic productivity tasks have long exceeded the minimum hardware requirements (and by minimum, I mean with extra resources still available, so not like a 2GB minimum but a 4GB standard). Things like word processing, surfing the internet, listening to music, and the like shouldn't ever consume more than they need to. I still look forward to the day where word processing depends on having a system with 32GB of RAM and a 16-core Xeon CPU.

The people that are going to need more than 4GB or 8GB are those with more specialized needs. Compared to the 500+ users we have, only a fraction have legitimate need more 64-bit Excel and 4GB+ RAM availability, and two engineers who use SolidWorks Simulation who have 24-32GB RAM.

I'm not saying that 8GB won't help over 4GB -- at least for browsing the internet it will help only a little (and a little more than little for slightly-power users users).

Now a person like I could always use more RAM. I have high standards for quality so some of the things I do, even with Microsoft Office programs like Word, I need all the horsepower and performance I can get (not joking, even had to install 64-bit Office 365 instead of the default 32-bit, and have consumed all 16GB of RAM in my Gigabyte Brix).

EDIT: English fail
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What type of office work do people even do these days that justifies the modern system they need? Is it really a case of them needing more, or just IT giving them more because they're following some support cycle.

In other words, how "crippled" would a typical office user be if you just handed them a Windows 98 box with Office 2000? Yeah they won't be able to watch YouTube videos, but who gives a shit.
 
PornoSatan said:
What type of office work do people even do these days that justifies the modern system they need? Is it really a case of them needing more, or just IT giving them more because they're following some support cycle.

In other words, how "crippled" would a typical office user be if you just handed them a Windows 98 box with Office 2000? Yeah they won't be able to watch YouTube videos, but who gives a shit.
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By replacing HDDs in laptops that have a Windows 7 or Windows 8 sticker on them with SSDs, you'll skip 1-2 whole life cycles for those assets. 7-14 more years! Perhaps you'll run those laptops till the day they die
 
Cerulean said:
By replacing HDDs in laptops that have a Windows 7 or Windows 8 sticker on them with SSDs, you'll skip 1-2 whole life cycles for those assets. 7-14 more years! Perhaps you'll run those laptops till the day they die
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It's usually not cost effective for an enterprise environment to run computing assets that are out of warranty. It can be done for a short while after the expiration date, but all that does is delay the inevitable rollout cycles while building risk for increased field failures and uncovered repairs that start to add up quick as a whole.
 
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Tsumi said:
I also don't see DDR3 increasing in price more than it has. From what I have seen, DDR2 has remained relatively constant from DDR3's release, if not dropped slightly. I don't expect DDR3 to cost 3x more in the future, it'll probably cost 0.9 of what it costs now.
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The only reason i think DDR2 didn't really increase in price was because the first couple of years that DDR3 was new a perfect storm of events kept DDR2 plentiful. Systems dying from bad caps, the dump of leased P4 systems hitting the market, the recession, etc. It didn't matter if manufactures had stopped making DDR2 there were plenty floating around in the market or in IT storerooms from older systems.
 
It's not that I think old ram necessarily triples in price, but rather that ram has been historically low for a while but I wouldn't want to bet on it always staying low especially when 16gb is so inexpensive.
 
mope54 said:
It's not that I think old ram necessarily triples in price, but rather that ram has been historically low for a while but I wouldn't want to bet on it always staying low especially when 16gb is so inexpensive.
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DDR3 is not at its historical low. It is at its plateau in terms of market stabilization. The historical low was about 4-5 years ago, and then started skyrocketing about 3-4 years ago. It is now at the point where it has stabilized, and won't be going up or down.

You think $80 for 16 gb is inexpensive? Try 24 gb for $25. That's what I got my RAM for 5 years ago.
 
Tsumi said:
DDR3 is not at its historical low. It is at its plateau in terms of market stabilization. The historical low was about 4-5 years ago, and then started skyrocketing about 3-4 years ago. It is now at the point where it has stabilized, and won't be going up or down.

You think $80 for 16 gb is inexpensive? Try 24 gb for $25. That's what I got my RAM for 5 years ago.
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In today's terms, $80 is a good deal for a 16GB kit of DDR3. At this point, I would just get the 16GB kit and not worry about it. It is probably overkill, but when 8GB kits of decent DDR3 are approximately $55, the difference is well worth it, especially since it will still be one of the least expensive component purchases in a high-end Haswell system.
 
I was pricing up memory for a new workstation earlier this week (I work on an in-memory database), and was quite pleased that you can now get 128gb (8x 16gb dimms) of 2133 ECC DDR4 for under £1000 (that's dropped quite a bit recently).

With Skylake, consumer pc's will be able to support 64gb of memory, though I'm not sure what most people with do with that much RAM.. I guess 32gb could be the new standard before the end of the year.
 
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Tsumi said:
You think $80 for 16 gb is inexpensive?
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Yes, but I'm probably a lot older than you. For most of my life RAM has been triple digits for single digits. That is, a few hundred bucks for 1mb of RAM, then a few hundred bucks for 1gb of RAM, then it became inexpensive when it was a few hundred bucks for 2GB of RAM and then a few hundred bucks for 4GB of RAM and then it plummeted around the time you are talking about (although I can't really speak to your 24gb of RAM for $25 bucks, I don't remember it ever being that inexpensive. price mistake? used RAM? seems a bit unrealistic without any other details), and then shot back up for a bit (but again, still cheaper than ancient times and still cheaper than DDR2), and now it's back down to an affordable level.

In terms of price to performance, bang for buck, or whatever metric you want to call the concept of how much you spend for gains, memory is at an all time low and should never be a bottleneck. Unless you're on a very tight budget and trying to shave dollars off your build, there's no good reason to skimp on RAM in my mind. As MrCaffeineX put it, why would you *not* double your RAM for an extra 20-30 bucks. That's the price of dinner and if it's really hard to stomach then buy something from someone from the used section.
 
DejaWiz said:
It's usually not cost effective for an enterprise environment to run computing assets that are out of warranty. It can be done for a short while after the expiration date, but all that does is delay the inevitable rollout cycles while building risk for increased field failures and uncovered repairs that start to add up quick as a whole.
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Laptops without SSDs are still a bit cheaper, so you can re-use SSDs you purchased for laptops in new laptops. It's more an investment than an upgrade that lasts for the remainder of the asset life cycle.

There will always be failures no matter what policies and regulations you implement. An SSD will help reduce some failures and problems, and will also benefit the user for longer battery run time, and allow them to fit in more productivity via the microsecond latencies of SSDs + extended battery runtimes.

For new laptops, order them with a 128GB SSD.

It's such a waste to throw away good laptops after an official asset life cycle in the company ends, unless it is a matter of operating system and software incompatibility (ex. Windows XP with Office 2003 vs Windows 7 with minimum Office 2007 at present time).
 
I think 8GB is more standard than 16GB. It really depends on what you plan on doing with your computer ie. Program, code, shop, or game.
 
mope54 said:
Yes, but I'm probably a lot older than you. For most of my life RAM has been triple digits for single digits. That is, a few hundred bucks for 1mb of RAM, then a few hundred bucks for 1gb of RAM, then it became inexpensive when it was a few hundred bucks for 2GB of RAM and then a few hundred bucks for 4GB of RAM and then it plummeted around the time you are talking about (although I can't really speak to your 24gb of RAM for $25 bucks, I don't remember it ever being that inexpensive. price mistake? used RAM? seems a bit unrealistic without any other details), and then shot back up for a bit (but again, still cheaper than ancient times and still cheaper than DDR2), and now it's back down to an affordable level.

In terms of price to performance, bang for buck, or whatever metric you want to call the concept of how much you spend for gains, memory is at an all time low and should never be a bottleneck. Unless you're on a very tight budget and trying to shave dollars off your build, there's no good reason to skimp on RAM in my mind. As MrCaffeineX put it, why would you *not* double your RAM for an extra 20-30 bucks. That's the price of dinner and if it's really hard to stomach then buy something from someone from the used section.
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Brand new at Fry's. 1333 mhz CAS9 1.65v 6x4gb memory, it happily does 1333 mhz CAS 8 at 1.425v (doesn't do faster than 1333). It was back when Fry's does those crazy special deals to get people into the store. I also got 2x8gb sets for ~$20 from Fry's in the same time frame.

Yes, when you factor value into the equation, it rarely makes sense to go 8gb over 16gb. However, my point was that from a need basis, more than 8gb isn't really necessary. From a future cost basis, prices aren't really going to go up or down much.
 
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