Question 128GB Memory at 3000 vs 64GB Memory at 3600 for high end gaming PC + workstation

[nathancorp]

Hello,

I recently created a post asking for opinions on if I should go for an Intel i9-9900KS processor or the AMD 9 Ryzen 3950x. The response was overwhelmingly in favour of the Ryzen, which I’ve now decided on, so to move onto the next conundrum:

I learnt that motherboards compatible with the Ryzen 3950x have 4 lanes so I am limited to either moving onto threadripper 3970 HEDT parts or settle for 64gb of memory. I don’t want to buy multiple kits (even if they’re identical) for fear of instability so I am now contemplating cutting down to 64GB of Memory at 3600 MHZ.

Here is my new build:

Power Supply EVGA SuperNOVA G3 - 1000 Watt
Motherboard An AMD Ryzen 9 3950x compatible motherboard (waiting on Vendor to recommend)
Processor AMD Ryzen 9 3950x
Memory 128GB - 8x16GB - 3000MHZ or 64GB at 3600 MHz
Video Card MSI Geforce RTX™ 2080 Ti 11GB
Sound Card Creative® Sound Blaster Z
Networking On-Board Ethernet
Operating System Drive - SSD Samsung® 970 EVO Plus - 1TB SSD - M.2 -
PCI Express
Data Drive - SSD or HDD Samsung® 860 EVO - 4TB SSD - SATA
Data Drive - SSD or HDD Samsung® 860 EVO - 4TB SSD - SATA
Optical Drive LG 8x DVD Writer External
64-Bit Operating System Windows 10 Pro

To shed some more light I’ll be using this high end desktop PC for a mix of gaming and work. I also have a 4K screen so gaming and movies are important because that is pretty much the only entertainment I get due to my hectic and busy work schedule that spans around the clock. For work I’ll have 100s Of tabs open chrome and/or Firefox and several instances of MS office too. Due to my hectic work schedule I need to be able to play games ideally with these tabs open and without having to close everything down each time i want to play which is the case with my current PC which is also quite respectable in terms of specifications.

So do I really need 128GB of memory given my high end gaming and work adaptations (simultaneously)? OR will 64GB memory do nicely such that I won’t notice a difference at all?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Isokolon]

since there's next to no info on what you're actually doing I'd be surprised if anyone can give you a definite answer. When you need more than 64GB (which in itself is a lot) then Threadripper it is.
3000 vs 3600 Mhz doesn't make a ton of difference. sure, it's there to some degree but we're not talking big numbers here. as for the mainstream boards (X570) - Gigabyte seems to be crushing it in terms of bios & software this time around.
gaming will need 12-15GB RAM (including Windows). Add what you're thinking you work stuff needs.

 

[nathancorp]

since there's next to no info on what you're actually doing I'd be surprised if anyone can give you a definite answer. When you need more than 64GB (which in itself is a lot) then Threadripper it is.
3000 vs 3600 Mhz doesn't make a ton of difference. sure, it's there to some degree but we're not talking big numbers here. as for the mainstream boards (X570) - Gigabyte seems to be crushing it in terms of bios & software this time around.
gaming will need 12-15GB RAM (including Windows). Add what you're thinking you work stuff needs.

Thanks for the answer. As stated my work is all browser and MS office related. I’d have about 200 windows open doing research’s or other similar work and I desire to game with those windows and ms office applications open rather than shutting them down. I don’t do any video rendering or anything similar.

Yes that’s what I was thinking too, say 16GB for a high end game with windows plus say another 20 Gb for work cause sometimes I’m at around 12gb with the amount of windows I have open, so taking 20 GB to be safe so 64GB seems sufficient but I’m still going to mull over it a tad.

I was told I can do 2 separate but identical kits of 32x2 so that’s 128GB. My vendor would then stress test it for 72 hours so that should confirm stability.