I5 8400- 8GB RAM OR 16 there are differences?

[marinalicmax]

I'm interested in this i have the i5 8400 and on my motherboard Asrock PRO i have only one 8gb memory stick, will i get at least a bit more FPSa and stability if i plug in another and i have 16gb rama ??? Now with a single tile card and graphics card GTX 1060 MSI gaming 6 gb + an example in the BF1 game I have about 70, 80 fps, is it a little and can it be increased ??? Much obliged.

 

[chad.joseph.gibbons]

I had this problem not long ago, albeit with an i5-6500. I was upset that games like Fallout 4 and Battlefield would plummet a bit in CPU intensive areas (especially cities in F4). I did some research and avoided upgrading to an 8400 by simply getting faster memory.

One of my sticks died in my 16GB dual channel setup @ 2400mhz. The rest of my games ran without issue using the leftover stick but Fallout and Battlefield tanked hard. Borrowed identical memory from a friend and everything shot back up. Simply going from single channel (1 stick) to dual channel (2 matched stocks) without any other tweaks or increases (still 2400mhz) saw gains of 10-15 FPS(!!!). Currently using 1070 Ti that was mostly CPU bound, your results with a 1060 may vary, it’s not CPU bound.

So, I do more research and find there are massive gains in a few games by going with higher RAM speeds. Decided to replace the old 16GB set with a dual channel 3200mhz 8GB set and now Fallout 4 and battlefield never EVER dip below 60FPS and my minimum and average FPS on CPU intensive games jumped by ~20-35 FPS. As you can imagine, this was quite a shock after hearing more ram>faster ram for years. Turns out that’s not the case at all anymore.

—TLDR—
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GO DUAL CHANNEL

2133 - Entry level minimum performance
2666 - Absolute sweet spot for price/performance
3200 - Where games stop seeing tangible increases (diminishing returns)
3466+ - Only if 0.05% increase in benchmarks and +1-2FPS past 3200

Going from 8GB to 16GB only give 1-3 FPS boosts, shorter load times by 8-12 seconds, and in some cases (GTA V, 1 or 2 others) dropped FPS by 1 or 2.

 

[marinalicmax]

I had this problem not long ago, albeit with an i5-6500. I was upset that games like Fallout 4 and Battlefield would plummet a bit in CPU intensive areas (especially cities in F4). I did some research and avoided upgrading to an 8400 by simply getting faster memory.

One of my sticks died in my 16GB dual channel setup @ 2400mhz. The rest of my games ran without issue using the leftover stick but Fallout and Battlefield tanked hard. Borrowed identical memory from a friend and everything shot back up. Simply going from single channel (1 stick) to dual channel (2 matched stocks) without any other tweaks or increases (still 2400mhz) saw gains of 10-15 FPS(!!!). Currently using 1070 Ti that was mostly CPU bound, your results with a 1060 may vary, it’s not CPU bound.

So, I do more research and find there are massive gains in a few games by going with higher RAM speeds. Decided to replace the old 16GB set with a dual channel 3200mhz 8GB set and now Fallout 4 and battlefield never EVER dip below 60FPS and my minimum and average FPS on CPU intensive games jumped by ~20-35 FPS. As you can imagine, this was quite a shock after hearing more ram>faster ram for years. Turns out that’s not the case at all anymore.

—TLDR—
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GO DUAL CHANNEL

2133 - Entry level minimum performance
2666 - Absolute sweet spot for price/performance
3200 - Where games stop seeing tangible increases (diminishing returns)
3466+ - Only if 0.05% increase in benchmarks and +1-2FPS past 3200

Going from 8GB to 16GB only give 1-3 FPS boosts, shorter load times by 8-12 seconds, and in some cases (GTA V, 1 or 2 others) dropped FPS by 1 or 2.

 

[marinalicmax]

My memory is Viper working at 2667Mhz, of course I have the minimum number of FPSs although I can go to 120, 130 on some maps. Thank you for your reply and greeting from Croatie!

 

[chad.joseph.gibbons]

Keep in mind though, the 8400 is on a newer architecture and may benefit from speeds higher than my system did. Always do your own research to confirm. Look up a few benchmarks gauging memory speed effects on the 8th gen procs, but 3200 is usually a safe bet on DDR4.

Edit
Found an article you might find interesting. Keep in mind the ram here is already dual-channel and they are just increasing the ram’s operating frequency. Make absolutely sure your motherboards supports the frequency you want!

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3086-intel-i5-8400-cpu-review-2666mhz-vs-3200mhz-gaming/page-4

 

[mdd1963]

you want two RAM sticks to run dual channel memory access; by running a single stick, you effectively cut your memory bandwidth in half...; it absolutely will bring down framerates in games noticeably...(as it is 2018, go with a pair of 8 GB sticks....; a pair of 4 GB sticks is not really sufficient anymore)