Question about a little upgrade to my PC

[dandelius]

Greetings Reader

Lately I've been enjoying the Battlefield V open beta,
however this is the first game I've played that my PC can't fully handle on 1080p max settings.
Fps drops occur when a lot of firing is happening and such things, as well as the fact that max settings will not give me steady 60 fps.

SPECS:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz 3.19 GHz 4 cores
Motherboard: H110M PRO-VD (MS-7996) (U3E1)
Memory: 8.0 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

So to enhance my experience while playing this game I was thinking about upgrading my PC,
and honestly I thought that just getting an extra 8gb of ram would be enough.
now I am not so sure so I figured I'd ask the experts.

Besides gaming I also often edit videos, maybe more ram would be beneficial to that aswell?
Also do you have any tips on adding RAM? I have only replaced GPU's before.

Thank you for reading,
and I hope you can help.

Dandelius

 

[camieabz]

Tips:

Dual Channel is better than single channel (i.e. use both slots)

Memory that comes in pairs is most likely to work together, but identical single RAM sticks can work too (no guarantees). Mixing memory (i.e. brands) might be problematic, but can sometimes work, and mixing RAM (i.e. speeds) is never a great idea, as you limit the faster RAM to the max speed of the slowing RAM, assuming they work together at all.

That mobo's rated RAM is DDR4-2133, so there's little point in going to faster RAM, unless pricing is favourable.

RAM is easy to replace / install. Pop out the RAM slot clips at each end. Align the RAM the correct way (line up the slotted gap in the DIMM - it will only work one way). Gently place the RAM stick into the slot and apply an even pressure across the length of the DIMM, and as it drops into the slot, the end clips should pop up and take hold of the DIMM. Ensure the clips have fully retracted into the sides of the DIMM by giving them a little nudge.

That's it. To remove the RAM, you pop out the RAM slot clips and gently press on them to lift out the RAM stick. Easy!

I'd recommend 16GB (2 x 8GB). Your motherboard is only good for 32GB, and that might be with specified brands and models. I wouldn't go that high. Also, if using Windows 7 Home, 16GB is the limit.

Suggest 2 x 8GB of DD4-2133 Corsair Vengeance RAM. It's not too expensive. If you get searching, double check that it's DDR4 and not DDR3, and that it's 288 pin, and not a 260 pin SODIMM (used in laptops).

When you boot back into your system, suggest you head straight for the BIOS and see the amount of RAM recognised and its speed. It might be worth resetting the BIOS to get the RAM to take, ensure it's 2133, and running in dual channel (which it should be if you see 16GB).

Also suggest you take a peek at your pagefile to ensure it's appropriately setup and not adding to system resources. I prefer 512MB minimum and maximum equal to RAM installed (e,g, 8192 or 16384). That keeps the likelihood of the pagefile resizing all the time at a minimum.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Check your mobo maker's RAM QVL list for best RAM matches (Skylake selected - https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/H110M-PRO-VD#support-mem-3

 

[Darkbreeze]

The above is good advise, and I'll just add that it's usually a better idea to go ahead and just buy a 16gb kit and then either sell or repurpose the oddball module you originally had installed, than it is to take the chance that purchasing even an identical memory module is going to play nice with your current stick of memory. Often, it either will not, or it will but with some caveats like not wanting to run in dual channel or running at reduced speeds or timings.

It's very hard to buy an "identical" module at different times because memory manufacturers are constantly changing the components used on a given part number based on what they have on hand at the end of a production run or even during a production run sometimes. You could have one part number, from the same manufacturer, that you THINK is identical, but in reality there are three or more different iterations of that module. And all of them use highly different parts and constructs. Case in point.


http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3610013/amd-ram-compatibility.html#20562100

 

[dandelius]

Thanks for helping me out, your info was clear and helpful

However I was still wondering whether the RAM upgrade is the only thing my PC needs
when it comes to gaming/video rendering.
or is it rather pointless and do you recommend a different upgrade?

 

[camieabz]

Well Battlefield 5 has recommended requirements of 12GB RAM (unoptimised game, methinks). It could be argued that your CPU might be holding back your GPU a little. You can see your CPU upgrade options from this:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/H110M-PRO-VD#support-cpu

Picking one that's available where I live, and one that's a decent step up from your current CPU - http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-7600K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6500/3885vs3513

However, it's not exactly a cheap CPU, especially since you don't really need to replace your current one. I'd look at the RAM first.

Take a look at this benchmark video - https://youtu.be/BYi9rHtCgFI

The game is using 10-11GB of RAM with a 6700K, and is getting 50-60 FPS on average. Now compare the 6700K with the 7600K - http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-7600K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-6700K/3885vs3502

So something to bear in mind.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Couple of questions.

1. What version of Windows are you running? If Windows 10, how many spring and fall update cycles has it been through since the last time, if ever, you did a clean install of the operating system?

2. Have you at any point recently done a clean install of the GPU card drivers using the DDU?

3. Are your OS and game files installed on an SSD or a mechanical hard drive?

Yes, upgrading the RAM is worthwhile. There are many games, especially more recent ones, that will swap out to the page file if you only have 8GB of RAM installed. That isn't AS bad of a deal if the page file in on an SSD, but if the page file is on a slow mechanical drive, that's plenty to cause lags and stuttering, generally slow performance that might come and go.

Plus, even if you have enough RAM for the game itself, much might depend on what ELSE you are doing. Heavy multitasking such as recording, streaming, browsers with a fair amount of tabs open, or any other significant running processes might all eat up RAM and cause issues.

Would be a good idea to run the game in the same way where you normally see issues, open Windows resource monitor and take a look at how much RAM is actually in use at the times when you see issues.