Do I Need More RAM?

[Avac]

According to HWMonitor, im using about 98 percent of my ram when playing cs go with Skype and a few other programs (Steam, GPU-Z). It's also taking longer to alt tab in and out of cs go. My current RAM is a 2 by 4gb g skill ddr3. Should i upgrade to 16 gb? Should I buy an identical set? ( I know its hit or miss but it is a lot cheaper)

 

[Tradesman1]

I'd go 16GB for sure, there are already games out calling for 16GB, so if running other things also, go for it. and yes it is hit or miss, if you try and have problems give me a shout, DRAM is sort of a specialty of mine - we can try some adjustments to timings/voltages if needed

 

[photonboy]

Yes and No.
I have 16GB for future proofing and because I occasionally edit video.

However, I absolutely get no benefit for gaming even with a few other programs running.

*Your 98% usage concerns me. Running CSGO and those other programs shouldn't be using all 8GB. There's either a memory leak issue with one of the programs, or Windows itself isn't properly closing unneeded programs to free up space.

You didn't mention GOOGLE CHROME. Web browsers and Chrome in particular can often use a lot of memory.

So...
Try:
a) REBOOT, and
b) Play CSGO with Task manager running in the background

Exit later and see what your maximum ram usage was.

(Windows itself can drop below 1GB usage if the game needs more and CSGO isn't incredibly demanding. I haven't checked but under 2GB I assume so even 4GB without other programs should be fine and again other than browsers with multiple tabs or a PROBLEM like a memory leak I can't think of what's going on)

Other:
Task Manager-> Processes
(You can see what's using memory but some Windows processes won't show up. Sometimes indexing/search or other things can eat up too much memory and you need to investigate what's going on.)

 

[photonboy]

Do you have 8GB installed or not?

I found the "2 by 8gb" comment confusing. Do you mean "2x4GB" as in 8GB total?

Other:
Also, I want to confirm you aren't using an APU or iGPU that's sharing the memory (in other words you're using a dedicated video card).

 

[Avac]

Do you have 8GB installed or not?

I found the "2 by 8gb" comment confusing. Do you mean "2x4GB" as in 8GB total?

Other:
Also, I want to confirm you aren't using an APU or iGPU that's sharing the memory (in other words you're using a dedicated video card).

Sorry, my bad, i'll fix it. Its 2x4GB. No APU or iGPU. Funny, I restarted my computer and its working fine with memory at 50% with chrome, CSGO, steam, skype, and hwmonitor. I don't know what was going on.