Faster 8GB vs Slower 16GB For Gaming

[poofyhairguy]

So when I built my gaming HTPC I originally got some fast 2400mhz DDR3 ram, but I only got 8GB because I figured the original G3258 plus 750 ti couldn't use more. Well now I have upgraded that rig to a 4770k and a 8GB AMD 480 and I am scared that soon 8GB will be the bottleneck for 1080p gaming. Since it's a Mini ITX board there are only two ram slots, so I have to replace to upgrade.

I don't really want to waste RAM, so what I considered doing was trading RAM with my main gaining machine. It is a 2600k+390x+16gb of 1600mhz RAM that I plan to replace with a Zen deal maybe late 2017/early 2018. It has four slots with just two sticks now, so I could move the slow 16GB it has to the HTPC and then find two more sticks of 2400mhz ram to get it back up to 16gb (with maybe an extra gaming benefit for the upcoming year).

My only issue there is I know from experience the 1600mhz 16gb RAM in my gaming rig won't overclock at all, so my HTPC (which won't be upgraded anytime soon) will be stuck with slow RAM pretty much forever.

Bottom Line:

For the next 3-4 years would it be better to have 8GB of fast ram or 16gb of slow ram in a gaming rig?

 

[Fardringle]

Do any of your current games max out (or get close to) the 8 GB? If not, keep it until you actually need more, and then buy the (hopefully) cheaper 16GB or more at that point.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Do any of your current games max out (or get close to) the 8 GB? If not, keep it until you actually need more, and then buy the (hopefully) cheaper 16GB or more at that point.

No, nothing comes close to maxing out 8GB today.

But what worries me is I don't believe in the second part of your statement. I have been tracking DDR3 prices for a while and it already seems like the prices are higher (deals and not) than when I originally bought all this RAM. It seems peak DDR3 has passed, and we are heading towards peak DDR4. Given that if I am going to make a move I need to do it now, as my plan still involves buying some RAM because I do feel like my main gaming rig needs 16GB because I want to get a better than 1080p monitor for it soon.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

When comparing RAM speeds greater than 1600MHz or higher to each other, the differences are pretty much always extremely small in a large majority of bench marks. It's when you have RAM running at less than 1600MHz and you upgrade to something faster that you will see the largest improvement.

And most users do not need more than 8GBs of system RAM. A large majority of those who would need more already know and realize their short comings and already know and understand why they would need more RAM and wouldn't be asking about the upgrade.

"I do feel like my main gaming rig needs 16GB because I want to get a better than 1080p monitor for it soon."

Your system RAM will have almost zero impact on your monitor's resolution. That's a GPU characteristic.

 

[UsandThem]

Here's my .02.

Go ahead and get 16GB in your system. In a previous thread we began discussing what current games use 8GB+. That list will grow larger over the next several years:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/16gb-vs-32gb.2494589/

As far as the speed, you can read these articles (there are a ton more out there if you want to read more to decide):

http://techbuyersguru.com/does-ram-speed-matter-ddr3-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-games?page=2

http://www.overclock.net/t/1487162/...affect-fps-during-high-cpu-overhead-scenarios

https://hardforum.com/threads/tbg-d...-1600-vs-1866-2133-and-2400-in-games.1842339/

Faster RAM will help the performance a little bit, but it's not a dramatic difference in most tests. However, some articles/videos will show a dramatic increase.

In my opinion, if the price is close, it makes sense to get the faster stuff. However, if it's a huge price difference, then you have to decide if the ROI (return on investment) is worth it to you and the games you play.

 

[UsandThem]

One more I forgot to link to:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell

One thing of note, there was a thread about this review about a year ago in which some people believe the results are invalid because they don't test it using "frame time variance".

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Just because a Game uses more than 8GBs of system RAM though, doesn't necessarily mean the performance of the game will be significantly impacted by only having 8GBs of RAM. The GPU's RAM will certainly be a more dominant factor.

Many folks have their games installed on an SSD which are significantly faster than Hard Disk Drives. SSDs can hide many of the perceived shortcomings of having to read from disk almost as equally as well as having the extra RAM would in a lot of scenarios.

 

[RaistlinZ]

OP,

I'd go for 16GB if I were you.

Here's a look at my system for reference. While ONLY playing Guild Wars 2, and having a few Chrome tabs open, I'm already using 7.5GB of system RAM! If I were to run any other large programs at the same time I'd likely go over 8GB just that fast.

If you're looking to keep yourself set for the next 3-4 years you'll definitely want 16GB of system RAM. And I don't see why you need to keep your slow RAM. Just sell that and buy faster DDR4.

 

[UsandThem]

Just because a Game uses more than 8GBs of system RAM though, doesn't necessarily mean the performance of the game will be significantly impacted by only having 8GBs of RAM. The GPU's RAM will certainly be a more dominant factor.

Many folks have their games installed on an SSD which are significantly faster than Hard Disk Drives. SSDs can hide many of the perceived shortcomings of having to read from disk almost as equally as well as having the extra RAM would in a lot of scenarios.

SSDs aren't anywhere as fast as RAM, and the impact of not having enough RAM for a game differs on the game. It's no different than running out of VRAM. The performance will suffer.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

I didn't say that SSDs were as fast as RAM. I said that they can hide many of the shortcomings perceived almost as well as having the extra RAM would. Huge difference.

And as far as showing Task Manager with a game and a browser with multiple tabs open as evidence for needing more RAM, who is using all of those tabs and playing the game simultaneously? There's a lot of room to use a page file in that scenario very effectively.

I think too many people try use raw RAM usage as as evidence for needing more without paying any attention to the RAM management that happens in the background.

 

[UsandThem]

I didn't say that SSDs were as fast as RAM. I said that they can hide many of the shortcomings perceived almost as well as having the extra RAM would. Huge difference.

And as far as showing Task Manager with a game and a browser with multiple tabs open as evidence for needing more RAM, who is using all of those tabs and playing the game simultaneously? There's a lot of room to use a page file in that scenario very effectively.

I think too many people try use raw RAM usage as as evidence for needing more without paying any attention to the RAM management that happens in the background.

If you have some links to the tests/data you are talking about in this thread, I'd love to read them.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Why would I need tests/data to prove to you that SSDs can load data from disk significantly faster than a Hard Disk Drive would be able to? When SSDs first were coming out it was a huge talking topic that it was probably the single biggest upgrade one could make to their PC. They do mask some RAM short comings rather well... I don't need to prove to you with tests/data at a very specific link.

And unless you disabled the page file, your scenario of having a "few" tabs open (looks like more than a few by the way) is silly because the pagefile would handle exactly that kind of thing. It would write to disk portions in RAM that aren't being used so that things that need to be used can reside in RAM. People should give the background RAM management at least some credit. I don't need a specific link for the pagefile either.

Edit Just For Your Added Information Value
PageFile
http://www.howtogeek.com/126430/htg...-windows-page-file-and-should-you-disable-it/

 

[UsandThem]

Why would I need tests/data to prove to you that SSDs can load data from disk significantly faster than a Hard Disk Drive would be able to? When SSDs first were coming out it was a huge talking topic that it was probably the single biggest upgrade one could make to their PC. They do mask some RAM short comings rather well... I don't need to prove to you with tests/data at a very specific link.

And unless you disabled the page file, your scenario of having a "few" tabs open (looks like more than a few by the way) is silly because the pagefile would handle exactly that kind of thing. It would write to disk portions in RAM that aren't being used so that things that need to be used can reside in RAM. People should give the background RAM management at least some credit. I don't need a specific link for the pagefile either.

Claims with no links. Gotcha.

So your point is when a system runs out of RAM (let's say in gaming because that's what the OP asked about), the impact isn't as noticeable because a SSD is faster than a HDD.

I guess someone playing a fast paced shooter wouldn't notice that at all.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

Your arguments are without logic or understanding of how the computer works. I added a link in my above comment. You're welcome.

If on a 16GB system RAM machine you could play a fast paced shooter and the game would occupy 9GBs of that RAM and then you went to play that same game on an 8GB system RAM machine with an SSD and an enabled page file, I think you would be fairly hard pressed to notice a difference UNLESS the GPU itself was choking on the game or there was some really bad coding.

 

[UsandThem]

Your arguments are without logic or understanding of how the computer works. I added a link in my above comment. You're welcome.

I simply asked for a link to what you were claiming. You didn't have anything to back up it up, so you are trying to turn it around. Other people will see right through your "argument" as well.

People who run their mouth and spout of figures without proof just go on my ignore list. I have better things to do than to argue with keyboard warriors.

Ignore list +1

 

[HutchinsonJC]

In a day and age where everyone wants everything handed to them on a silver platter, I shouldn't be surprised that you require a link for what a page file is or does despite the fact that it's not hard to google it or the fact that most people with 5,000 plus posts on a tech forum would know what a page file is and does.

Edit:

Also, one of the few games that required more than 8GBs of RAM on your list, the developers themselves pretty much gave up on trying to fix the game and offered refunds for the game purchased on PC through steam.
http://www.pcgamer.com/warner-bros-is-offering-refunds-to-all-batman-arkham-knight-pc-owners/

Their RAM requirement was through the roof as a result of their inability to code it well. And the refunds were a result of an unhappy player base dealing with the issues.

Even the intro paragraph to this article would seem to indicate that the performance of an SSD can mask shortcomings of RAM:
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews...ham_knight_amd_vs_nvidia_performance_review/1

 

[Dasa2]

if you keep a clean os install most current games that suggest 16g will still run fine as the game itself still uses under 8g
if you dont have enough ram a game will stutter
games that load things on the fly also stutter and a ssd can reduce the length of this stutter significantly but not completely and a game that goes slightly over its available ram will behave much the same
if a new game comes out that wants way over the available ram then the game will become unplayable and even raid0 samsung 960 pro wont save you

faster ram can improve cpu performance ~10-20% on a ddr3 system
most games will be gpu limited but for those that are not its a decent difference

you dont mention the timings of your ram kits
1600c8 for example will perform fairly close to 2400c11

as for how your ram choice could affect the detail settings in game
stutters due to insufficient ram will benefit most from dropping texture detail
low fps due to cpu will benefit most from dropping view distance

 

[VirtualLarry]

if a new game comes out that wants way over the available ram then the game will become unplayable and even raid0 samsung 960 pro wont save you

Yep. SSD helps, but it's not an overall panacea to RAM issues. If you need more RAM, get more RAM. Period.

 

[poofyhairguy]

if you keep a clean os install most current games that suggest 16g will still run fine as the game itself still uses under 8g
if you dont have enough ram a game will stutter
games that load things on the fly also stutter and a ssd can reduce the length of this stutter significantly but not completely and a game that goes slightly over its available ram will behave much the same
if a new game comes out that wants way over the available ram then the game will become unplayable and even raid0 samsung 960 pro wont save you

faster ram can improve cpu performance ~10-20% on a ddr3 system
most games will be gpu limited but for those that are not its a decent difference

you dont mention the timings of your ram kits
1600c8 for example will perform fairly close to 2400c11

as for how your ram choice could affect the detail settings in game
stutters due to insufficient ram will benefit most from dropping texture detail
low fps due to cpu will benefit most from dropping view distance

I have a SSD for the boot drive and most of the games.

Also I boot a very clean OS because it's a HTPC. It boots into Kodi, which can swap itself for Steam Big Picture. No multitasking, no other apps, I don't even load the full Windows shell. One game/app at a time forever.

The CAS of the 8GB of ram is 9. The CAS of the 16gb of RAM is 10.