Question Best route to upgrade memory in mine and my wifes computers?

Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
18,811
197
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My wife and I have prebuilt systems, both with an I5-6400 and 8 gigs of 2133 memory. Her system is a Lenovo, and mine is an ASUS.

Motherboards are unknown, but I can take the side of the case off and look if need be.

My video card is a Radeon R9 270x with 2 gigs of memory.

Her system - Mostly used for email, word processing, and playing path of exile. She is a teacher and does stuff for her classes while at home.

My system - Games such as path of exile, 7 days to die, team fortress two... etc, and basic video editing for youtube.

I thought about upgrading my memory to 16 gigs of ddr4 3000, or whatever will work in my system. Then take my 8 gigs of 2133 and put it in my wifes system.

7 days to die recently got a big update and my system is lagging terribly. Using task manager, 7 days to die takes up around 85% - 90% of my 8 gigs of memory.

TLDR:

My wife and I both have 8 gigs of DDR4 2133.

What is the best and cost effective route to upgrade memory in both systems?
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
You left out the most important detail: HOW MANY DIMM SLOTS are on each mobo? That will tell us if you have to discard or can re-use existing RAM between systems.

Also, brand-name OEM systems that came with 2133 RAM, are unlikely to let you use faster speeds. You can probably use faster RAM, but it wont run at XMP settings. (Unless your pre-builts are "Gaming PCs".)

I would get a pair of 32GB kits of DDR4-2400, and call it a day.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
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Each system has two slots.

Currently, each system has a single 8 gig memory stick
Oh, in that case, it's fairly easy and straightforward to go to 16GB in each box. Either buy 2x8GB sticks of 2133, and put one in each box, or take the stick out of one, and put it into the other, and add a 2x8GB kit of whatever speed into the other box.
 

Dasa2

Senior member
Nov 22, 2014
245
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91
Try run 7 days at low texture detail to confirm it is a low memory issue and you wont be disappointed that things don't improve

Running two sticks will bring a nice boost to CPU performance from dual channel up to ~20% in games but RAM speed does nothing for video rendering.

Your stick should work together in her system but there is a chance it wont.

Your MB probably wont allow running a 3200 RAM kit over 2133MHz unless it has a Z series chipset

Have you looked at VGPU usage? I think you will find that if your running out of memory it will be on the GPU first which then overflows into RAM and this is a serious slow down.

At 1920x1080 max detail The game is using 4500MB VRAM and 4GB RAM so 8GB RAM should be enough for the game and you need a new GPU.
At low texture detail (8th) the game uses 2500MB VRAM, Also setting UMA texture quality to lowest drops that to 1733MB. But strangly enough RAM usage doesn't change.
 

Texashiker

Lifer
Dec 18, 2010
18,811
197
106
Oh, in that case, it's fairly easy and straightforward to go to 16GB in each box. Either buy 2x8GB sticks of 2133, and put one in each box, or take the stick out of one, and put it into the other, and add a 2x8GB kit of whatever speed into the other box.

Thank you.

I will probably get 16 gigs ddr4 2400 for my system, then move my single 8 gig stick of 2133 to my wifes computer.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
As far as a GPU upgrade goes your looking at RX570 4GB as a good value starting point.
True, although, if he's going to upgrade his GPU primarily for more VRAM, why not go for the 8GB model? It's like $20-30 more, if that. Given current pricing, it seems like a worth-while investment, if it will squeeze out an extra year or two of usability on the tail end of its life.
 

Dasa2

Senior member
Nov 22, 2014
245
29
91
True, although, if he's going to upgrade his GPU primarily for more VRAM, why not go for the 8GB model? It's like $20-30 more, if that. Given current pricing, it seems like a worth-while investment, if it will squeeze out an extra year or two of usability on the tail end of its life.
Fair enough I just hadnt considered it as I'm in AU where there isn't really any 8GB 570.
570 start at $199 which is similar to the price of the 16GB RAM he was looking at and from there we have RX580 8GB at $329 which is ~10-15% faster + the ability to run max texture detail thanks to the extra memory.