How much RAM is too much? 32gb? 64gb?

[bryanW1995]

I've never really pushed the envelope on RAM in the past. In fact, I didn't even know that win 7 automagically created a RAMdisk until after I bought my most recent rig, so I only have 8gb in it. I plan to correct this travesty in my next build, but this does beg the question: how much ram can I use? Is 16gb going to be enough for any game that I play? 32gb? 64gb?

I mainly play games (civ5, nwn2, skyrim, BF3, DAO and TQIT are all on my rig right now) and surf the web, but like exdeath I hate latency with a passion and I don't mind spending a lot of money to get rid of it. I almost never have more than 10 pages open at a time.

 

[Veliko]

Most games are still 32-bit so won't use any more than 4GB. I have 8GB but don't see any point in going higher at the moment.

 

[exdeath]

I say max out the board. Ram is so cheap, the $200-300 needed to max out the 32GB in most boards isn't even a consideration compared to the rest of the components.

If you need something to do with it, create a RAM drive, set a startup script to copy certain apps/games into the RAM drive and symlink the writable or update-able stuff (config files, save directories, etc) to the SSDs.

Use sleep mode and a UPS, but if it did fail, the updated stuff was still written to non volatile storage.

Profit :awe:

Next best thing until STT-MRAM sees the light of day. 50 GB/sec is fun.

Unfortunately current OS designs can't run in a "magnetic core" type paradigm where RAM and storage device is one and the same, so it's a bit wasteful in that it won't just run your program and access your data in place on the RAM drive, it still "loads" and duplicates it into regular RAM first.

With RAM being as cheap as it is and consumer boards reaching 64GB and beyond, I see the next evolutionary step of storage tiering as using battery or standby power backed main RAM as both your RAM and hard drive (no "loading" anything, just access directly where it resides in the CPU address space). With system board and OS features to autonomously flush and sync to an SSD in the background for power loss protection. It's the next logical step up from the similar way of using an SSD to cache a HDD until we arrive at the holy grail of non volatile universal main memory

In the event of power failure, a "cold boot" is simply the OS copying the contents of the 256GB SSD back into the 256GB of RAM at multi GB/second sequential speeds, and then BAM your computer is instantly ready and always faster than any human user could ever hope to be. Might as well remove the hourglass and progress bar APIs from the OS at that point as well. They won't be needed any more. Good riddance.

 

[Gillbot]

Yeah, i'm fighting the urge to go from 24gb to 48gb on my x58. Why? The only reason I can come up with so far is why not.....

 

[KentState]

I run 24GB on mine which allows for a decent number of VM's to run in the background while playing games. I used to have to shut them down, but not so much anymore. I really want to move to LGA 2011 so I can go even higher with more cores.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

... I didn't even know that win 7 automagically created a RAMdisk ...

Are you talking about SuperFetch here? If not, do you have a link?

 

[bryanW1995]

Sorry yes, superftetch, looks like I'll need to do the work myself. But 64gb is only $450 or so at newegg right now. I could use 16gb system memory and a 48gb ramdisk...sigh...I think that exdeath's head might explode if I do this. Well, depending upon how much more expensive the mobo would have to be. If it's too much more I'll stick to 32gb, use 12gb system and 20gb ramdisk.

edit: ugh, looks like I'll need to go x79 for 64gb. Looks like 32gb is in my future.

 

[paperwastage]

I want a PCIe RAM-based device (like the one below, but for DDR3 DIMM 1333 and properly manufactured (eg max 4-16 slots depends on the size of your case, backed up via a HDD/SSD with battery)

http://www.ddrdrive.com/

 

[Blain]

how much ram is too much? 32gb? 64gb?

193gb

 

[anikhtos]

http://www.ddrdrive.com/

http://www.acard.com/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=270&prod_no=ANS-9010&type1_idno=5&ino=28

well this is cheaper than the one you point out
and if you use it on raid-0
you can have 300mb read and write speed
i have 2 devises set in raid0 and i get 600mb read and write speed
iops around 20.000
1800$ for 4 gb lol and lol

 

[FAUguy]

My motherboard supports 2133Mhz RAM (which I wanted the extra speed) so I was limited to 16GB last fall, as the largest 2133Mhz sticks were currently 4GB (4x4GB = 16GB total). Now I see there are 2133Mhz 8GB sticks, which would give me 32GB (replacing my 16GB) but they are new to market and a bit expensive ($400).

 

[God Mode]

Why even ask? If you have some money to burn and don't really need anything else, there is no waste in maxing out the memory.

 

[lehtv]

I can't understand what I'm reading here. People are actually supporting the OP in this? He's quite obviously wanting to buy more RAM than he needs. That means there is no point in buying that much RAM. Far as gaming goes, he will see zero benefit over 8GB.

To answer your question "how much RAM is too much?" - more than you need.

 

[Blain]

like exdeath I hate latency with a passion and I don't mind spending a lot of money to get rid of it.

If that's the case, worry less about your 8GBs of memory and revamp your storage configuration.

"x25m g2 80gb + wd20ears"
...Very old school

 

[aaksheytalwar]

16gb is the sweet spot. 32 gb is far more expensive with 0 gains regardless. The vfm point is 1866 cas 9 16gb. Almost the same price as cheaper ram so no down points

 

[Cerb]

I've never really pushed the envelope on RAM in the past. In fact, I didn't even know that win 7 automagically created a RAMdisk

I'm pretty sure that Windows 7 does not even support RAM disks without add-on software.

As to the question about the amount of RAM: before you must log out, check your peak commit in Task Manager. The number after the slash is the most MBs used since it started keeping track last (either boot up or login, can't recall which). That's the real total amount of used address space. So, FI, if the highest you see after fairly stressful uses is around 6000, then 8GB is more than enough for you.

 

[beginner99]

8 GB is more than enough unless you do some crazy database stuff or video editing or heavy photo editing in Raw formats with tons of layers.

If you surf, play some games and other usual stuff, don't bother. Yes it's cheap but if you don't need it just adds a point of failure to your rig.

 

[nanaki333]

i have 32GB of ram and set a nice chunk to RAM caching with fancycache.

 

[bryanW1995]

If that's the case, worry less about your 8GBs of memory and revamp your storage configuration.

"x25m g2 80gb + wd20ears"
...Very old school

Yeah, I'm also planning 512gb of ssd (probably 2x256 in RAID 0).

Looks like fancycache is what I'm wanting.

 

[Coup27]

193gb

lol like what you did there.

 

[paperwastage]

http://www.acard.com/english/fb01-product.jsp?idno_no=270&prod_no=ANS-9010&type1_idno=5&ino=28

well this is cheaper than the one you point out
and if you use it on raid-0
you can have 300mb read and write speed
i have 2 devises set in raid0 and i get 600mb read and write speed
iops around 20.000
1800$ for 4 gb lol and lol

yeah, but limited at 3.0 gbps SATA 2 unless you raid-0 as you'd said, and only DDR2, and backup only via CF card

i want PCIe x16 + DDR3 for no limitations ...

 

[razel]

I'd max out smartly. Things start to get expensive for the higher density RAM. Also you will need to move to at least Win7 Pro since home premium is limited to 16GB.

 

[boochi]

193gb

What, you have not upgraded to a 128 bit OS yet? Get with the times brother.

 

[nine9s]

Aren't there downsides to utilizing all your memory channels and banks? Doesn't it stress the memory controllers on CPUs and the CPU to use all the memory banks with full ram? Therefore not a good idea unless you must have the memory your adding for certain applications?

 

[nine9s]

repeat- sorry