memory upgrade for gaming

[TitusTroy]

I haven't bought new memory sticks in years as I've been satisfied with my 6GB of triple channel G.Skill memory but I notice I'm down to under 100 MB of 'free memory' when gaming with titles like the new Star Wars: Battlefront beta (according to Windows 7 'Resource Monitor')...is G.Skill still one of the top manufacturers or can someone recommend me some good memory sticks (I only want 3 sticks maximum so 3 x 4GB for a total of 12GB or even 3 x 3GB)...looking on Newegg I can't seem to find timings that match my current set (DDR3 1600 at 7-8-7-24)...do timings even matter?

 

[tweakboy]

All you need is 8GB of ram to play games wiithout a hitch.

 

[tweakboy]

Also different RAM and tests might show one thing, But who cares, you want to use it, Ram is cheap if you can get 16GB that would be icing on the cake with a SSD to boot. gl

 

[ArisVer]

You will not find 3GB sticks.

To get a proper answer you need to post your motherboard make and model.
It is also good to post your current RAM specifications.
You can use a program like CPU-Z to find out more information about them if you don't know.

I guess you are running 3 x 2GB now.....

 

[TitusTroy]

You will not find 3GB sticks.

To get a proper answer you need to post your motherboard make and model.
It is also good to post your current RAM specifications.
You can use a program like CPU-Z to find out more information about them if you don't know.

I guess you are running 3 x 2GB now.....

I like to upgrade my GPU often (currently have a GTX 970) but I've been satisfied with my i7 980x for awhile now and think it's still good enough today...my mobo is ASUS P6X58D Premium...G.Skill PI Series 6GB (3 X 2GB) DDR3 1600 7-8-7-24

is using the Windows Resource Monitor an accurate (best?) way of measuring how much system RAM is being used?...when playing the Battlefront beta I'm left with only 128 MB or so of free memory and that got me thinking that it might be time for a memory upgrade

 

[rchunter]

I'm running the exact motherboard you are and i'm running mixed ram no problem. I just don't overclock my ram and leave it at the stock 1600mhz. The rest of my system is overclocked though.
When you're buying just match the ram as much as possible. Should be easy to buy ram with matching speed and voltages. It might not be as easy to match cas and timings. When you get it just go into the bios and set timings manually.

 

[john3850]

I have a spare I7-930 at 200x21 which orignally had G.Skill PI Series 6GB (3 X 2GB) DDR3 1600 7-8-7-24.
Before I paid $180 for another 6GB Pi I bought 3x4 of G.SKILL Sniper DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24.
I set the old Pi memory from 7-8-7-24 to 9-9-9-24 in the bios so it would work with the new DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24 and my i7 930 still works great with 18gb.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231464

 

[TitusTroy]

I'm running the exact motherboard you are and i'm running mixed ram no problem. I just don't overclock my ram and leave it at the stock 1600mhz. The rest of my system is overclocked though.
When you're buying just match the ram as much as possible. Should be easy to buy ram with matching speed and voltages. It might not be as easy to match cas and timings. When you get it just go into the bios and set timings manually.

with RAM being fairly cheap nowadays I don't mind buying an all new set...what RAM manufacturer are you currently using?

 

[rchunter]

with RAM being fairly cheap nowadays I don't mind buying an all new set...what RAM manufacturer are you currently using?

My 6GB set is corsair, 12GB set is mushkin. They work fine together. Speed and voltages are the same on both sets. cas and timings are different.
When you get the new set you might as well at least try to run them both and see if they play nice together. More than likely you won't have any problems.

 

[TitusTroy]

so timings are not important in terms of performance?...my current RAM is 7-8-7-24...getting a new set at 9-9-9-24 won't make any difference performance wise?

 

[rchunter]

so timings are not important in terms of performance?...my current RAM is 7-8-7-24...getting a new set at 9-9-9-24 won't make any difference performance wise?

Probably not enough to worry about for real world performance. Maybe if you are into benchmarking stuff...

 

[h9826790]

If your mobo has another slot, you should consider to buy the 4th RAM stick and put it there. The real world difference of fully utilising the triple channel or not is less than 2%. You can't feel it (apart from the benchmark numbers).

My CPU is also in triple channel. The speed difference of running 3x8G or 4x8G is totally negligible. However, if the system is running out of memory, then there will be a huge speed penalty. So, if 8G is enough for you, and you still has a slot, get the 4th stick will be the cheapest, simplest, very effective way to solve your problem.

If 8G is also not enough, them the next step will be 3x4G, and leave yourself the 4th slot for further upgrade in the future.

 

[TitusTroy]

is using the Windows Resource Monitor an accurate (best?) way of measuring how much system RAM is being used?...when playing the Battlefront beta it shows I only have 128 MB or so of free memory and that got me thinking that it might be time for a memory upgrade

anyone know about this

If 8G is also not enough, them the next step will be 3x4G, and leave yourself the 4th slot for further upgrade in the future.

I never thought of doing this as I heard there was a performance penalty...either way I'm probably going to go 3 x 4GB for a total of 12GB

 

[daveybrat]

anyone know about this



I never thought of doing this as I heard there was a performance penalty...either way I'm probably going to go 3 x 4GB for a total of 12GB

That's the way i'd go. I wouldn't break triple-channel memory mode personally. And 6GB of ram in today's games is kind of low. 8GB or higher is the sweet spot, especially with how low DDR3 ram prices are today.

Go with the 3x4GB. 12GB should be fine for a while.

 

[TitusTroy]

anyone have any recommendations on a good DDR3 1600 3 x 4GB memory set?...I'm not interested in overclocking it at all...I triple channel sets are harder to find nowadays because triple channel is no longer widespread...so I would have to buy 3 single memory sticks...I prefer buying from Amazon over Newegg

earlier in this thread, john3850 recommended the G.Skill Sniper 3 x 4GB kit...it looks good...opinions?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231464

 

[Shmee]

Looks like a good kit.

 

[Arcanedeath]

I'd suggest ddr3l @ 1.35v memory G.SKILL, Crucial, & Samsung are all good choices for the ram

 

[TitusTroy]

I ended up getting this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL-_-20-231-314-_-Product

only thing that sucks is that I had to buy 2 dual channel kits even though I only need 3 sticks...so I'm stuck with an extra RAM stick

 

[tweakboy]

Sell the stick if you can. gl

 

[TitusTroy]

installed my new 3 x 4GB (12GB total) G.Skill RipJaw memory but what I thought was going to be a simple upgrade turned out to be a major job...I ended up having to reformat my hard drive!...installed the new 12GB kit, turned on my computer and there was a black screen- no video signal at all...I could hear the system booting up but no video...turned the power off and tried it a 2nd time and the system posted but I got an 'overclocking failed' message during boot-up even though I'm not overclocking anything...gave me the option of resetting the BIOS back to default settings so I did that

even thought it involved changing my AHCI setting back to IDE which is not what I want...going back to AHCI involves some registry hack but before even considering that I was happy that Windows 7 booted up fine...everything was working...so went back into the BIOS to customize the settings that I had before...as soon as I changed the memory timings to XMP Profile #1 the system blue-screened with no way of fixing it

so in the end I had to do a complete reformat...everything is working perfectly now but what an annoying hassle just for a simple memory upgrade...doing some Google searching it seems ASUS mobos can be finnicky in terms of memory upgrades and lots of people get that 'overclocking failed' message...my mobo is a few years old so maybe that also was a factor...either way next time someone says you don't need to do a reformat when installing new memory it might not always be the case

** Memtest shows 0 errors after 8 hours so I don't think my memory is bad in any way