8 or 16gb of ram?

[ribkage7]

I got some ram questions for my next build. Im ordering stuff piece by piece as newegg has stuff on sale (mostly) and ram is 15% of atm.

The system will be a 2500k system, OCed to dunno yet.
geforce 560ti (prolly a gigabyte built in OC)
Windows 7 64bit
Corsair tx750w psu and most likely the asrock p67 mobo, though Im waiting for the skyrocketed prices to go down a bit.
The system is mostly for gaming, mmos (rift, guild wars 2) and FPS and crap that isnt out yet.

Back to my questions, is 16gb worth it over 8gb? And should I just save money and get...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226095

Or spend a bit more and get...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231428

Ive read quite a bit that says you cant notice any difference at all between 1600 and 1333.

I havent read much if anything about the difference between 2 4gb sticks for a total of 8gb or 4 4gb sticks for a total of 16gb of ram.

Can someone school me and give me advise please?

 

[XLNC]

That Mushkin looks fine. Some motherboards don't overclock as well if you have all four DIMMS populated, if you're concerned about that.

Most people here will say 8GB is enough for gaming alone, and they'd be right. However, I went with 16GB since I want to experiment with RAMdisk to speed up my machine. There's an old thread on here where a guy figured out how to put commonly accessed game files on a RAMdisk to have it load super fast, and prevent stutters etc. I'm intrigued by that.

Plus, DDR3 will be the standard till 2015. Why not just stock up and be ready for anything that comes at you for the next 4+ years?

 

[mv2devnull]

For your applications the 8 GB is probably quite sufficient. In order to use more, a game should operate in 64-bit mode. However, games are written for compatibility, i.e. for 32-bit mode and less memory, and game devs won't lightly maintain dual versions.

I've seen 4x4GB that Just Works™. I've seen 4x4GB that has random errors without increasing RAM voltage. I've heard of 4x4GB that never did work reliably, while 3x4GB was fine (but hardly optimal). 2x4GB is much more likely to work without a hitch.

 

[ribkage7]

I am actually concerned with how easily I can OC. Im really just OCing it because its easy with the 2500k (which Ive already purchased and have) to have a good, STABLE overclock. Im ordering http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065 eventually (before install though)... just hoping for a sale lol

So now that Im going with 8gb due to what youve both said, should I get the 1600 as apposed to the 1333? Its just a couple bucks more and for some reason I think Id feel better having the bigger number (dumb, yes, but totally realistic and human... bigger is better).

Am I just answering my own question here? What are the actual benifits, if any, to getting 1600 over 1333?

*EDIT*
Or should I spend more and get 1333 ram that has better latencys like...? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231440

 

[sticks435]

Latencies will have no appreciable gains with SB. 1600 has a 1 or 2 FPS gain over 1333. Little bit more in other apps. Search the threads in here, there was a big one on this very same subject, with a link to an xbitlabs article that tested this very thing.

EDIT: Also, a 750watt power supply is waaay overkill for that system unless your running SLI or Dual GPU cards.

 

[ribkage7]

I got that psu because with coupons and rebates it was 80 bucks.

 

[Makaveli]

The psu may be more than he needs now but it will probably out last this rig and go into the next one.

I was running my 720Watt psu on a Socket 939 opteron 170 now that was overkill, but now look what i'm running with the same psu.

 

[sticks435]

It's a matter of efficiency. Most good power supply's are most efficient at 50% load. My just bought HX650 for example, is 85% efficient at 325 watts, which sounds just bout right for a 2500K @ 4.6, a overclocked 570, an HHD, SSD and once in a while a 260. But I digress.

 

[StinkyPinky]

For gaming I expect 8 gigs to easily be enough for the next few years at least. Almost all games still use less than 4gb for legacy reasons.

 

[Cerb]

No.

Even getting 8GB is typically for multitasking. I love it, because I can have a virtual machine or two up, a weeks-old instance of Firefox eating RAM (Windows Update is about all that forces me restart, these days), a game taking 1-3GB, the OS using hundreds of MB to over 1GB for file caching, and still have free RAM for anything that may need a bit.

But no single application, on its own, runs better than with 4, and 16 is overkill, these days, unless you have a RAM-hungry app. With 8, you will have headroom for when games can actually use 4GB, and more than that probably won't be needed until the PC is fairly old.

 

[Dadofamunky]

8 GB is overkill for almost anything except Photoshop. Don't bother. Get 8 and call it a day. RAM disks are still a fantasy with current PC technology. Also, the more RAM you install, the heavier load you impose on the memory controller. Now, perhaps current technology has solved that, but 16 GB is just window dressing.

Freakin' RAM disks. Whatever. I used to boot AmigaDOS and a C compiler in a 512KB RAM disk on a 1.5MB RAM 7.14 MHz (!) Amiga 1000. It booted in less than three seconds. THAT is a Godd*** RAM disk. Sandy Bridge cannot match that.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Also, in general I think your build plan looks good. But get 8 gigs and spend the rest on getting an SSD as a boot drive. It will cost more but is the best possible thing you can do to balance out your system.

Also, if you possibly can, get a GTX 570 instead of the 560ti. The price difference isn't that much but the performance difference is significant. I know it's easy for someone else to spend your money for you. But at least do yourself a favor and get the SSD.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

8GB should be more than sufficient. I just upgraded my X58 rig to 4x 2GB (still running in tri-channel mode) and plan to migrate that to S-2011 later.

 

[deimos3428]

Get 16GB. RAM is cheap right now. If you find you're not using it all, build another computer. (At least, that's how I sneak more computers into my home under the wife radar.)

 

[Edrick]

I just upgraded from 2x2GB to 4x2GB. I was concerned about some people saying that populating all 4 slots could affect OCing. I had no such problem. The only issue I found was that my P67 MB could not run all 4 banks @ 2133Mhz without increased voltage. So I run @ 1866 with tighter timings at stock voltage and call it a day. Plus it was cheaper to get 4x2GB rather than 2x4GB.

Having 8GB is a nice upgrade. Can not imagine having less than that again. But I am not sure what I would do with 16GB at this point in time.

 

[Makaveli]

I filled all 6 slots on my board and was also concerned about how it would affect my overclocking.

And the key is buy quality memory and stick to the same sets.

I've seen alot of people with 12gb's ram sets up on x58 and they were forced to either use 2t or lower their timings to make it stable.

I had no such issue still running 7-8-7-20 1T.

And the machine has passed 20 runs of Linx and is stable.

Memory is cheap buy as much as you can afford.

 

[Kingkazma]

lols im getting 16 because aftereffects is a douche when it comes to memory. literally i found 8 not enough when it came to integrating 3d models with live action ._.

but if you're gaming/OC i agree with other members telling you to get a SSD, 8gb is more than enough.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Get the 8gigs and put the rest towards an SSD or video card upgrade. Either a HD 6950 2GB or a GTX 570 and you'll be solid for some time.

I went with the faster 1600 with lower latency. I could have gone with standard 1333 sticks & put the extra $ towards a better mobo. Since I'm waiting for G3 SSDs from Intel before taking the SSD plunge.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Heh. I couldn't run 16 because of my HSF combo, which interferes with the fourth RAM slot. Eight is the new four now, but 16 is gilding the lily.

 

[poohbear]

i noticed no diff in anything going from 4gb-8gb, but it reduced my overclock a little bit so just went back to 4gb (was using 4x2gb). For me the extra cpu speed was much more noticeable than the extra 4g. & im a big gamer!

 

[ipsi]

All depends on what you're doing. For gaming, I would expect 4GiB to be sufficient, though possibly not ideal (e.g. you might need to keep an eye on your browser, as Firefox and Chrome (and IE) can all eat up quite a lot of memory). 8GiB would give you a nice buffer.

Whereas when I'm at work, I find that I 4GiB is not nearly enough, as I do Software Development and spend quite a lot of time running very memory intensive programs. 8GiB would actually be noticeable to me, and 16GiB would give me options regarding Virtual Machines and such.

My advice for you in particular would be to get an SSD + a normal HD (unless you spend a vast amount of money, there's no way an SSD is getting close to the capacity you'll need to keep more than a few games installed at once, let alone whatever else you'll use your PC for), and stick with 8GiB of RAM.

Another point of consideration is that upgrading to an SSD later on is way more of a pain than upgrading from 8GiB to 16GiB of RAM later on. Will require a re-install of Windows, and all your applications (which will be fun), in addition to opening the case, slotting it in and screwing it in place, whereas more RAM just requires opening the case and slotting it in place. Big difference .

 

[Emulex]

16GB cause memory is going to suck ballz in pricing really quickly.