Looking to Upgrade, Perhaps RAM?

EpicStarman

Reputable
Jun 9, 2014
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4,710
Hello fellow hardwarriors,

I'm just checking to see if my intuition is right.

I'm toying with the idea of upgrading my setup. I've been playing some intensive games and streaming lately and have found the results in each to be playable, but lackluster.

I currently run an i5-4690k with 8GB of DDR3 and a 970. The game I've wanted to stream is Arma 3, and since it hogs up all of my memory as it is, streaming it crashes my computer.

Am I wrong in assuming that the logical option would be to get 16GB?

I also do some music production, video rendering etc. So extra RAM wouldn't hurt by any means, but I thought I would bring it up for discussion.

 
Solution
For streaming the extra RAM wont help as much as a better CPU. Streaming with an i5 will be a challenge with only 4 threads. Streaming uses multithreaded workloads. A better upgrade would be a i7 4790k. You may be able to find a decent deal on one and after you sell your 4690k the difference will be the same as a 16gb kit of RAM, maybe less.

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Motherboard:
Existing ram specs:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:

Make sure your motherboard BIOS is up to date prior to going for more ram. On another note, please make sure you go for a kit as an upgrade option, mixing and matching rams is bad practice and often leads to more fuss than ease.
 
For streaming the extra RAM wont help as much as a better CPU. Streaming with an i5 will be a challenge with only 4 threads. Streaming uses multithreaded workloads. A better upgrade would be a i7 4790k. You may be able to find a decent deal on one and after you sell your 4690k the difference will be the same as a 16gb kit of RAM, maybe less.
 
Solution
Whenever you multitask, you need sufficient ram to hold the working set of all the running apps and games in ram.

Simply adding 8gb is not guaranteed to work.

Buy a 2 x 8gb ram kit with specs as close as possible to what you have.
Then try to add in your old ram.

If it works, you have 24gb.