Upgrading from 8GB to 12GB

[yashas08]

Hello everybody , currently I have 8GB DDR3 ram on my PC clocked at 1333mhz and I am looking to add another 4GB to it .
I know its better to add 8GB but ram is expensive in my country and I have to go by a budget , so I have to opt for 4GB .
But what is the correct way to select the ram so that I dont run into incompatibility issues , i know i have to select the one that rus at 133 mhz but the mobo will adjust the speed , what else do I need to look after ?

 

[captaincharisma]

even if the mobo adjusts the speed it still will be hot or miss if it will work. if your budget doesn't allow to buy an 8 to 16GB kit the best thing to do is make sure the stick of ram you get has the same speed and latency figures. have you checked to see if the make and model of your ram is still being sold?

 

[Herc08]

You want to look at the timings and the CAS. There is usually a sticker on the RAM. Are you can use CPU-Z to determine it. It's usually like 15-15-15-35 or something like that.

 

[geofelt]

What is plan B if you find out that what you bought is not compatible.?

Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when 4 sticks are involved.
That is why ram vendors will NOT support ram that is not bought in one kit.
It is safer to get what you need in one kit.

If you have a prebuilt pc, and you must try, go to a ram web site, enter the make/model of your pc and you will get a list of supported ram upgrades.

Better, I think is to sell your 8gb and buy a 2 x 8gb kit.

 

[yashas08]

Guys will 8GB ram be enough for gaming at 1080p for say around 1.5 years ?

 

[Herc08]

That should be good for one and half years. Most games still use 8GB, and Windows 10 does a great job and managing memory as well.

 

[geofelt]

Guys will 8GB ram be enough for gaming at 1080p for say around 1.5 years ?

Yes.

Most games have, in the past, been developed in a 32 bit environment which limits game usage to 2gb, possibly 3gb.
Game developers do not want to need large amounts of ram to run, that would limit their market.

When gaming, or anything else, for that matter, monitor your hard fault page rate using task manager.
If you see a significant number, say 1 hard fault per second, you will know that you are short of ram.

And... if you can use a ssd for the windows C drive, such hard faults will be resolved quicker.