How much memory do I need

[fschris]

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]

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.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Given today's high prices on DDR3, I think that 8GB might be enough, but 16GB never hurts either.

 

[DaveSimmons]

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]

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]

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]

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]

If you currently have 8, then 8 should be fine, if you are building new grab 16 and forget about it...