How much memory do I need

fschris

Member
Jan 18, 2011
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0
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I do some moderate gaming and dont really overclock.

BF4, Far Cry, Titan Fall are my kind of games.

Moderate internet usage and thats about it...

Do I need 16GB of Ram or is 8 plenty ??

I doubt 16GB really improves gaming performance.

I plan to buy GSkill Sniper series or Corsair Brand. Something well established and stable with some performance.

FSChris
 

MongGrel

Lifer
Dec 3, 2013
38,466
3,067
121
8 is probably adequate, I use 12 but I'm still using triple DDR3 GSkills.

if you're going 16 I'd get 2X8 ranks, but looks it's probably really unnecessary in your case I'd think.
 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,587
10,227
126
Given today's high prices on DDR3, I think that 8GB might be enough, but 16GB never hurts either.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
40,730
670
126
8 GB is fine, and you don't need to buy higher-speed RAM for gaming it makes only a tiny difference. Go to the main AnandTech site and find the RAM articles, look at the gaming benchmarks not other parts.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,889
2,208
126
This all sounds about right. I doubled my 8GB because it seemed to eventually get to > 50% usage too often. I began to see I had a program with a memory leak.

Now, the program has been corrected, and Samsung RAPID only grabs so much RAM.

It also depends on what you want to use it for. Like I said, the RAPID feature only uses so much, even in its latest release. But there are other caching programs -- Primo-Cache and Super-Cache -- where the user can select the amount of RAM to use.

That's why I upgraded my aging laptop to 8GB. 5GB is more than necessary for all the programs running on it; 3GB makes a cache showing benchmarks that are way, way above the limits of the SATA-II controller.
 

mfenn

Elite Member
Jan 17, 2010
22,400
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www.mfenn.com
Now, the program has been corrected, and Samsung RAPID only grabs so much RAM.

It also depends on what you want to use it for. Like I said, the RAPID feature only uses so much, even in its latest release. But there are other caching programs -- Primo-Cache and Super-Cache -- where the user can select the amount of RAM to use.

If you value your data, you should turn off RAPID immediately. It's an in-memory write-back cache, so if you suddenly lose power during a write operation (quite likely on a laptop), then that write is gone forever.
 

escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
3,339
122
106
Any system I would use day to day 8GB would be the absolute minimum, 16GB is most preferred if you can afford it. Its a simple way to make sure one part of your performance never dips.
 

Joeydubbs

Senior member
Jun 11, 2008
211
2
81
If you currently have 8, then 8 should be fine, if you are building new grab 16 and forget about it...