Should I upgrade my RAM?

[Luis Felipe Rodrigues]

Hello guys, I have a fairly old PC, it has a i5 3570k, 2x4gb 1600 MHz DDR3 of RAM, the mobo is a GA-B75M- D3H, and the GPU was a Radeon 7950 3GB until it died a few months ago. Since I had to buy a new GPU, I decided to get a GTX 1070, and I'm using it right now, great card, but is my current RAM enough for it? Should I upgrade to 16 GB, or is 12 GB enough? If I do have to upgrade, should I get two new 8gb sticks and use them in dual channel, or get two new 4gb sticks and use them along with the two I already have, or get a single new 4gb stick and use it with what I already have for a total of 12GB?

Some games like Dark Souls 3 that should run at max settings no problem still have some fps dips, and I realize that it's because the rest of my system isn't on par with the GPU, and I would love to upgrade to a 7th or 8th gen CPU, a DDR4 compatible mobo and DDR4 memory sticks, but sadly I can't do that right now, the budget won't allow it, so the only thing I can do is increase my RAM from 8 to 12 or 16 gb, and even that I will only do if it will really increase the performance, the budget is REALLY tight. Any opinion is appreciated.

 

[why_wolf]

Well 16GB is the recommended RAM size these days, though 8GB is perfectly usable.

You can just buy two more sticks and plug them in with what you have but they may not work. RAM is very sensitive to timing differences. So if you go that path try to buy the exact same model you already have or 2nd best RAM that lists the same timings as your current ones.

Just buying a straight new pack of 16GB is of course the best way to go.

Always dual channel.

 

[Satan-IR]

What resolution are you playing at and what frame rate? It'd be fine for 60Hz monitor (60 fps at 1080). Lowering the graphics settings a bit might go a long way in smoother game play.

I'd say 8GB is OK for almost every game and that CPU can handle the 1070 fine. Having more RAM would not have a meaningful impact on gaming performance in terms of frames per second. 'Faster' RAM (clock rate / timings) might add a couple frames (2-3) in some games.

 

[Luis Felipe Rodrigues]

What resolution are you playing at and what frame rate?

I'm playing at 1080p 60 fps, and the games run just fine at that res and framerate, the problem is just the fps hiccups that happen here and there.