12gb or 16gb in x58 Mobo for gaming

[Keith Stone]

I am looking to upgrade my ram from my current 4gb specifically for gaming only. I have an Intel i7-950 and an ASrock x58 extreme3 motherboard. Since I only play games, surf, watch movies and listen to music. Should I go with 12gb (3x4gb) or 16gb (4x4gb)? The 16gb (4x4gb) can still be configured in triple channel according to the x58 manual.

However, for usage purpose would 16gb be overkill, since I don't do any graphic rendering? Or would it be safe to upgrade to 16gb since most new games like Battlefield 4, Metro Last Light, and Bioshock Infinite require so much memory usage?

 

[Supahos]

I would go for 12gb there is no reason whatso ever in your situation to have more memory. I would tell you to stop @ 8gb, but then you lose triple channel so I get that part but no reason for 16gb... 12gb kits are hard to find, You can always buy a quad kit and sell the 4th stick on ebay 😛

 

[Gabkicks]

I just bought 4 4gb sticks of 1866 ram for my x58/i7 920 build. I'm just gonna use 3 of the sticks and sell one. I want to stay triple channel even if it doesnt do much over dual.

 

[Tradesman1]

Check if your mobo supports flex mode, think it might, if so can use all 16GB and have 12GB in tri channel and the odd 4GB will run in single channel