8Gb 1600mhz ram vs 12Gb 1300mhz ram with ramdisk.

[catthing]

Hi, I have been using 2 x 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10600 1333MHz Single Module Ram (so 4Gb in total) and have just got 2 x 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Single Module, (8Gb in total).
Am i better off for gaming using 8Gb 1600Mhz of ram or using all the ram 12Gb in total running at 1300Mhz and using 4 Gb of it in ramdisk.
Also whats the advantage of Ramdisk.
Please can someone help.
oh, im running windows 7 64bit.

 

[ss202sl]

The advantage of ramdisk is having a very fast but small(4GB) drive. Most HDD's today are fast enough that ramdisks do not add much to a system. SSD's are a better option because they are very fast, and can be large enough to replace the entire HDD.

As far as total ram for gaming, 8GB should be enough so just use the 8GB at 1600.

 

[catthing]

The advantage of ramdisk is having a very fast but small(4GB) drive. Most HDD's today are fast enough that ramdisks do not add much to a system. SSD's are a better option because they are very fast, and can be large enough to replace the entire HDD.

As far as total ram for gaming, 8GB should be enough so just use the 8GB at 1600.

thank you.

 

[gaborbarla]

Hi catthing,

While it is good practice to get your RAM to work at the highest mHz, it is also not as important as some sites and memory manufacturers want you to believe.
This article demonstrates how dual channel RAM did almost nothing in terms of real life performance (http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-ram-how-dual-channel-works-vs-single-channel/Page-3).

The Megahertz of your RAM is important but it wont give you more than 2-5% improvement in real life scenarios, but more important generally is how much RAM you are running in the system.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/691850-1333-vs-1600mhz
I would stick with 12GB because windows does a good job at caching files and if you "sleep" your computer (Suspend to RAM STR) instead of switching it off it will cache more and more files until you hardly have to load anything.

I have seen people buy 32Gb of RAM and make a large RAM drive and copy their favorite game on windows load onto the RAM drive so they can get almost instantaneous load times. This is much overrated, as it is quite a bit of money and time involved setting it up, and the advantage vs a fast SSD is marginal, especially when windows already cached those files once. RAM drives can be quite effective if you are developing software for example, when you keep your files on the drive. But care must be taken to synchronize those files regularly to a real drive as if there is a power failure you will lose everything on the RAM drive.

Gabor