What RAM upgrade should I buy?

J

jonwil

n00b
Joined
Dec 29, 2014
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41
My current system specs are:
Intel Core i5 6500 @ 3.20GHz
Gigabyte H170M-D3H-CF DDR4 motherboard
2x4GB Kingston HyperX sticks KHX2400C15D4/4G (from memory I bought the 2400 speed even though my motherboard can only do 2133 speed because the store was out of the 2133 speed)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 GPU
Windows 7 x64 Home Premium

I regularly work with large data sets and memory hogs (e.g. web browser with 20+ windows open, multiple copies of Visual Studio on some large projects, programs with large data sets etc) and regularly see "low physical memory" in task manager when I am using the system hard (My browser will slow down and sometimes even freeze completly and when that happens I notice almost no free physical memory and that my browser is eating a lot of RAM)

Based on what I have now, what should I buy if I want to upgrade to 16GB? A second set of 2x4GB sticks? A set of 2x8GB sticks? What brand/type/model/speed? Are there any windows-based tools I can use to see what's really eating all my memory and whether an upgrade to 16GB will actually make a difference for the things I do?

Or with prices being so high right now thanks to all the sheeple buying the latest overpriced "must-have" mobile devices, should I not bother with the upgrade?
 
Well something from like Corsair or yeah Kingston is on more QVLs probably. Or you can try a lot of the other various stuff, Geil has been good.
so yeah I suppose just a 2x8gb 2133 kit. only 8gb has come a lot closer to being maxed out, we really should start seeing 16gb kits as the minimum now.
 
Easy way to check your RAM usage is Ctrl-Shift-Escape, then click the Performance tab....

I'd just pick up an additional 2x4GB set.

Make, model, and speed for you REALLY don't matter whatsoever because of your H-series motherboard. So just buy whatever's cheapest.
 
So mixing and matching sets (different speeds, different vendors, different chips etc) isn't going to make a difference to my system with the motherboard I have?
 
Don't buy anything right now. I have 8GB like you, you definitely don't need more. More is nice, and it'll help games here and there, but you don't NEED it. Don't pay twice what it costs, I refuse. Just wait until end of year and if pricing has returned to more sane levels, then go for it. I'm not spending a cent over $60 for a 2x4GB 2133 kit. These used to be $45 on a good day, no way I'm paying $90. Prices are currently going down, let's wait and see if the trend holds:

upload_2018-3-27_8-29-3.png
 
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