Is 8GB's of RAM good enough for now, or should I go 16GB's?

[meatymcloven]

Hi, I'm planning to build a new computer sometime this year, or at least buy newer parts for my current build, but Newegg is having a sale on RAM today, and I'm just wondering if I should go 8GB's, or 16GB's. I don't know if I want to spend the money, right now, if 16GB's won't make much of a difference, but it is always nice to futureproof. And if I do go with 8GB's, will I be able to purchase any 1600MHz RAM Sticks in the future to upgrade in case the specific RAM I order today goes OOS or Unproduced by that time? IIRC, you can use any brand as long as it's the same speed, and timing, though I'm not sure about voltage.

Oh, and is there any better deals than this currently?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345

I've heard that you don't need more than 1333/1600 max, where computers are currently at, as you won't see a difference, so 1600MHz seems like a good choice. But is that actually a good deal, or have there been much better deals?

With tax the price of 16GB's comes to $96.50, and of course 8GB's would come out to half of that, $48.25.

Anyway, is it worth it to get that now for $96.50, or should I hold out for a better deal, or just get 8GB's, or is there a better deal currently going on? From what I've searched I haven't seen any. I'm not really in a huge hurry to buy it, as I don't need it any time soon, just figured I could buy it while it's on sale and save some money.

Thanks for any help!

 

[David Dutton]

Do you edit video?

More than 8GB of RAM serves no purpose other than to add heat to your computer unless you have a specific use like editing video.

Windows 7 RAM usage:

1GB - multitasking is sluggish
2GB - multitasking is far more responsive
3GB - generally sufficient
4GB - little benefit over 3GB, but recommended for gamers
8GB - no advantage during games but opening/closing games may be faster in some scenarios

16GB - must edit video or do some other task that can actually utilize this much RAM or it will add HEAT to your case

*It's interesting to note that the new NVidia GTX680 adds a feature called GPU Boost that can increase frame rates if the thermal limit is not hit. It's very useful and NVidia said all future NVidia graphics products will use this.

My point about GPU Boost is that if you add more RAM to the case, you raise the heat which will then actually reduce the effectiveness of the graphics card. It will be slight in a properly cooled case but it will exist and why PAY MONEY for a feature that serves ONLY to reduce your gaming experience.

**MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER** (just ask my wife)

Older thread but 16GB DOES in fact help.. 3 words: LARGE DISK CACHE

After superfetch is done loading things up, your programs will load a LOT faster, after you have played a game for about 30mins, the ENTIRE game will be cached to ram, and load times will be virtually instant.. I have had 16GB of ram for ages.. and yes it DOES help

Windows 8.1 after it sits idle takes up about 4gb of ram.. that leaves only 4 on an 8GB system... it can page all but 1.5GB of that to disk... which still leaves plenty of ram... but paging takes time.

Even 2 yrs ago 16 would benefit over 8 for 3 words: LARGE DISK CACHE After your computer has been running for a few days, all your games and programs will instantly open because all the data is being read from cache at the ns vs ms level... so yes.. 16 has a HUGE benefit over 8... plus if it's 16 in a HIGH END machine.. that machine will be good for gaming.. or for anything for about SEVEN years.. providing it doesn't have major failures and providing the user keeps the GPU updated.

I'm on an Alienware Aurora R3 from 2012 with 16GB.. It does have Usb 3 but only PCI 2... but I have that nice intel 4 CORE HT cpu that I can clock at 5ghz water cooled... not many current machines can pull that off... the only thing I'm missing is PCI 3

My bios didn't support drives over 2TB nor did it support IEFI... so I grabbed the raid and disk portion of the bios from a current r4 and inserted it into my bios.. now my system can boot from drives up to 4TB and use drives larger than 4TB as non system drives

But back to the original point... I can't see any argument for NOT putting in 16GB back in 2012 and in 2014. I could easily say 32GB is useless.. but it's not:LARGE HARD DRIVE cache... SSDs are nice.. but be real.. they just book the OS and maybe some games... most systems just use SSDs to boot and a raid 0 or 5 for data. but hey.. system ram is still faster than a SSD... so you still benefit from a large file cache...

You really can't have to much.. if I could put 128GB in my box, I'd do it.. heat from ram sticks is minimal.. and with modern cooling, it's a non issue.. with 128GB of RAM... every part of windows would be cached, and every game and program you ran would be cached and run with the speed as if it were on a ram drive.

So 16,32, etc no benefit? wrong.. MAJOR benefit to the speed of launching and running of apps.

 

[damen02]

Hi David Dutton. Recently I installed 16GB of RAM in my PC with Windows 8.1, which mainly use graphic design programs, google chrome and occasionally some 3D. The performance monitor shows me that I'm only using about 4 or 5GB of RAM. What do you think, should I configure something to make more efficient use of my memory? Thanks for your advice

 

[PC tec]

Do you edit video?

More than 8GB of RAM serves no purpose other than to add heat to your computer unless you have a specific use like editing video.

Windows 7 RAM usage:

1GB - multitasking is sluggish
2GB - multitasking is far more responsive
3GB - generally sufficient
4GB - little benefit over 3GB, but recommended for gamers
8GB - no advantage during games but opening/closing games may be faster in some scenarios

16GB - must edit video or do some other task that can actually utilize this much RAM or it will add HEAT to your case

*It's interesting to note that the new NVidia GTX680 adds a feature called GPU Boost that can increase frame rates if the thermal limit is not hit. It's very useful and NVidia said all future NVidia graphics products will use this.

My point about GPU Boost is that if you add more RAM to the case, you raise the heat which will then actually reduce the effectiveness of the graphics card. It will be slight in a properly cooled case but it will exist and why PAY MONEY for a feature that serves ONLY to reduce your gaming experience.

**MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER** (just ask my wife)

Cisco recommends 64 GB for a VM workstation running more than 8 VMs (Windows 8).

 

[harishkumar09]

I am surprised when people keeping saying that only gamers need more than 4 GB.

I usually do a lot of research on the internet, may be I am an information hungry guy, and I can easily end up opening 40+ tabs minimum on a normal day. Then add a few open PDF documents I am reading, a couple of Word docs open as I compose a book and there you have it! It starts feeling sluggish at 4 GB

And when I open 10 youtube educational videos (at least) and start watching them and downloading them, the computer sputters and stutters.

And then there is bittorrent running in the background downloading some educational open source videos.

And then lets assume you have two microsoft user accounts open simultaneously.

The computer now starts sputtering at 6 GB. Windows PhotoViewer takes 120 seconds to load an image of F-22 Raptor.

And I am not playing any games... I never play games....Even when I do,rarely, they are primarily strategy games with low memory footprint.

Solution: ReadyBoost through Pendrive. I allocated 8 GB for ReadyBoost and now the computer is blazing fast....

So if you are doing some CAD or MAYA or playing CRYSIS or such multiplayer action games...go for 16 GB RAM.

Or if you are computer is sluggish because of too many browser tabs and open docs, and 20 youtube videos playing/downloading simultaenously, use ReadyBoost.

 

[harishkumar09]

And I might also be transcoding and burning a few DVDs out of the educational videos, Kaspersky Anti-Virus may kick in, three or four softwares are pestering you for updates and they trick you to click yes and start downloading 0.5-1GB of updates, and Java decides to install itself after downloading the latest version( I dont remember it giving permission to do so) and it all adds up.

I wonder what kind of person goes with just 4 GB. I guess he just checks email and logs out and does not have more than 5 tabs open.

And I might be posting to a couple of open forums just as I am doing now, sharing the fruits of my research.....and I am listening to music and may be ripping music from my DVD to external drive and then well running anti-virus on my 1 TB drives....the more memory I have the more tasks I can come up with.....but ReadyBoost is enough for me.....I just need to allocate more of it.

 

[harishkumar09]

And my laptop is switched on for may be a week or two and I need all my programs and docs and files and browser tabs open and readily available. I might need a tab I opened a week ago and I want it when I want it with no more than a couple of seconds delay. If you are like me, then minimum you need 6 GB.

 

[harishkumar09]

By the way even I am planning to upgrade RAM to speed up certain things.... I wonder whether transition from 6 B to 8 GB will overheat my laptop and cause problems. I own a Dell Inspiron Core i3 dual core, N5051. Again there is already a 4 GB card in one slot and with the difficulty of getting 2 GB cards, I may end up having 10 GB or even 12 GB. Is it safe for my laptop to have 8 GB plus memory? Will I lose some components due to excess heat?

 

[USAFRet]

You do realize that you are making comments on RAM usage from a 2 year old conversation, right?

 

[Joanle]

Maybe, 16GB does more benefit than 8GB.

 

[USAFRet]

Maybe, 16GB does more benefit than 8GB.

Today, maybe. 2 years ago when the question was asked? Maybe not so much.

 

[harishkumar09]

You do realize that you are making comments on RAM usage from a 2 year old conversation, right?

Yes. I kind of was aware of the fact, but I thought I would share my experience and gave some general advice. Plus I had a question of my own. What do you think, would upgrading my laptop of said configuration from 6 GB to 10-12 GB increase the heat generated and create heat related issues?

 

[evomatrix]

I'm a computer systems engineering student,,,,im still in my first year, and i thought of upgrading my laptop memory to 8GB from 4GB..

Is it worth to upgrade???

I do a lot of research and sometimes open 15+ tabs in my browser,I also use auto-cad... and i will use some more advance software in the future.. and sometimes my memory usage goes up to 70%>>
I also do some advanced gaming like arma3, black flag..etc rarely..

current laptop specs..(ASUS X550CC)
Intel Core i5 3337u (1.8ghz-2.7ghz)
4gb 1600mhz ram
nvidia geforce 720m 2gb
750gb sata 5400rpm hdd
windows 8.1 64bit

 

[Peabot]

Do you edit video?

More than 8GB of RAM serves no purpose other than to add heat to your computer unless you have a specific use like editing video.

Windows 7 RAM usage:

1GB - multitasking is sluggish
2GB - multitasking is far more responsive
3GB - generally sufficient
4GB - little benefit over 3GB, but recommended for gamers
8GB - no advantage during games but opening/closing games may be faster in some scenarios

16GB - must edit video or do some other task that can actually utilize this much RAM or it will add HEAT to your case

*It's interesting to note that the new NVidia GTX680 adds a feature called GPU Boost that can increase frame rates if the thermal limit is not hit. It's very useful and NVidia said all future NVidia graphics products will use this.

My point about GPU Boost is that if you add more RAM to the case, you raise the heat which will then actually reduce the effectiveness of the graphics card. It will be slight in a properly cooled case but it will exist and why PAY MONEY for a feature that serves ONLY to reduce your gaming experience.

**MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER** (just ask my wife)

I have to disagree. I am NO computer expert, but I have been observing things on my computer since i just built one, and when I increased my RAM from 8GB to 16GB, ArmA3 stopped glitching, and the FPS went up, plus my GPU, that used to always go up to 100% usage, started only going up to the 80%'s. This is what my GPU app has been recording during all my games.

In more detail;

I originally built my computer with the following essential specs;

Asus z97 mobo
Intel i5 4690K
8GB RAM
Radeon R9 270, 2048gb

When I found that ArmA3 still wouldn't play to my likings, I decided to install another 8GB of RAM to make it a total 16GB. I only did this because at this point I didn't have the funds to do anything more. I wasn't expecting much of a difference, but thought what the heck. I had thought it was probably the GPU, and was going to buy another matching GPU to go crossfire in a couple more months.

Instead, I found that the extra 8GB of RAM made a world of difference. Somehow it really took the load off my GPU.

Up till this point, my MSI afterburner GPU overclocking/monitoring application ALWAYS, showed that my GPU usage maxed out at 100% sometime during the game, but after I upgraded to 16GB, my ArmA3 game stopped twitching and stumbling, became mush smoother, and lo and behold, the MSI Afterburner application always shows that the GPU only went up to 88% or 89% during my game.

Like I said i am no computer expert, but I do have powers of observation and this is what I observed.

Maybe some games are extremely reliant on the RAM, more than others?

 

[Peabot]

Maybe, 16GB does more benefit than 8GB.

Today, maybe. 2 years ago when the question was asked? Maybe not so much.

I think everyone knows that. Old threads with their outdated questions should still be updated with current answers, in my opinion. I came here intending to find out if i should go from 16gb to 24 or 32 gb, since going from 8 to 16 made such a dramatic difference.

Partaking in this thread, I think I know my answer; if I intend not to change anything else on my current rig (that I just built) for the next 3 or 4 years, yes then probably even more RAM will be useful - If not now, then in a couple years!

 

[PC tec]

Go for 16GB if your playing games, editing videos or running multiple VMs. 8GB is good for basic and old (before 2008) games

 

[Daniel one thousand]

dont listen to the people that say adding an extra 8 gig to make 16gb in total will not make any difference. it will make a difference in EVERYthing that you do on your computer. this is because OS's are restricted by the ratio of how much RAM is being used against how much is freely available.

It will increase everythings speed including

OS startup
switching between programs
program start up
having multiple programs running
FPS ON GAMES
internet downloads and page load up times

everything.

how is this you ask?

because i have been using PCs since i was 4 years old, have broken and repaired more than ive had hot meals and have played almost every decent FPS shooter that has been released on PC since Doom, wuake and duke nukem.

 

[maxerious]

Modern games are getting close to utilizing 8 gigs, bf4,fc4 and black flag to name a few but there not there yet plus video cards v ram is going crazy as well to help with 4k gaming my 680 lightning had 2 gigs 970's jumped to 4 gigs even if its in two partitions and the 980ti is rumored to have 6-8 gigs its taking alot of strain off sys memory imo atleast for 1080p gaming havent delved into 4k just yet so 8 is safe for the next couple years i beleve atleast

 

[Joebin Vahed]

go for 12 gb ram

 

[dexter21greer]

this should have been closed along time ago. sadly i read it all. from a computer hardware engineer more RAM does make a different, always has always will image Ram like a moving truck from one house to another the more it can transfer at once the less trips you will take the less loading and unloading, Speed of ram isnt really all that important like mentioned..years ago lol most ram only functions around 800mhz anyways 1333 is fine and most ram is 1600 anyways but dnt spend extra to buy 1866 or anything like that, u wont notice the difference. I also wouldnt buy 16gb if you can get 12gb cheaper, I mix music with alot of high end programs and vst and games, 8gb is more then enough for most of it, for music/video 12gb is recommended with windows 8.1 for anything else 8gb is more then fine. focus more on the gpu and cpu, amazon currently has 6 core amd black editions for 99$ and 8 core amd black editions 3.4-41.ghz around 150$ get a decent gpu gt750 ti for 100$ or a gtx960SSC ACX 2gb for 200$ . All these things factor in, motherboard speeds, hard drive transfer speeds

 

[mohit9206]

I think 512mb Ram is enough if you're using Windows 98/2000 although when XP comes out you would be better off with 1GB for better performance. I also don't recommend 128mb video cards as they don't make much difference in games so 64mb is enough for no although if you can afford it definitely get 128mb card as it will be more futureproof.

 

[PC tec]

I think 512mb Ram is enough if you're using Windows 98/2000 although when XP comes out you would be better off with 1GB for better performance. I also don't recommend 128mb video cards as they don't make much difference in games so 64mb is enough for no although if you can afford it definitely get 128mb card as it will be more futureproof.

Your an idiot.

 

[USAFRet]

OK, this 3 year old thread is going nowhere.
Closing this.