Do I need to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB of RAM?

testudo · Jul 22, 2015

Hello,

I currently have 8GB of 1866 MHz in my rig. I was wondering if I should maybe look into upgrading it to 16GB. I mostly use my rig for gaming. I do not really use it for work anymore. Is it worth upgrading or is 8 GB still enough for gaming? I mean, I am running games fine now, but I guess it is more of a future thing.

Thanks in advance for your response!

v12dock · Jul 22, 2015

Are you running out of memory now?

testudo · Jul 22, 2015

v12dock said:
Are you running out of memory now?

No, I don't think so. I was just wondering because I have been using 8GB of RAM since I built it in 2012. I am just looking to upgrade stuff and RAM is the last thing on my list, but now I am thinking that I don't really need it. I guess I just wanted a second opinion lol.

peche · Jul 22, 2015

It's not necessary, also 16GB won't make any notable difference on gaming, but at this moment DDR3 is pretty cheap so you can make the upgrade if you want, get decent 1600mhz DDR3, beyond that frequency is a waste of money,

PD: for working, tasks and other jobs memory its pretty important,

Pill Monster · Jul 22, 2015

testudo said:
Hello,

I currently have 8GB of 1866 MHz in my rig. I was wondering if I should maybe look into upgrading it to 16GB. I mostly use my rig for gaming. I do not really use it for work anymore. Is it worth upgrading or is 8 GB still enough for gaming? I mean, I am running games fine now, but I guess it is more of a future thing.

Thanks in advance for your response!

Up to you....lol If you're happy atm why upgrade?

You'll need to eventually tho, 8GB isn't going to cut it with a 4GB GPU, some of the RAM is reserved for paging in DX11/12.

So yeah I would go 16GB if u have the cash. I need more myself, I got 8GB and for the first time in years I had to turn my pagefile back on, GTAV was eating 6GB of RAM. That was just the game .exe Total memory use was over 8GB...

Dbiggs9 · Jul 22, 2015

When I play GTA V I use about 11GB.

testudo · Jul 22, 2015

Pill Monster said:
Up to you....lol If you're happy atm why upgrade? But you'll need to eventually, 8GB isn't going to cut it with a 4GB GPU, some of the RAM is reserved for paging in DX11/12.

So yeah I would go 16GB if u have the cash. I need more myself, I got 8GB and for the first time in years I had to turn my pagefile back on, GTAV was eating 6GB of RAM. That was just the game .exe Total memory use was over 8GB...

I have a 6GB G1 980 ti on the way. Will that make a difference?

rtwjunkie · Jul 22, 2015

More and more games are using 8GB of RAM or more. Dbiggs9 said 11GB for GTA V. I've see Dragon Age Iquisition easily use 7. The 6GB VRAM frame buffer on the 980Ti you are getting will mostly make use of texture memory. Some of these games have alot more than textures to load up, containing mammoth amounts of data in the RAM.
We are almost at the end of the "8GB is enough" days.

EDIT: I've said this several times in the last few months, and I think it's time for all of us to stop advising people that 8GB is all they need. We're a tech site, and it should be obvious which direction games are going, so we should be adapting as well.

GhostRyder · Jul 22, 2015

testudo said:
Hello,

I currently have 8GB of 1866 MHz in my rig. I was wondering if I should maybe look into upgrading it to 16GB. I mostly use my rig for gaming. I do not really use it for work anymore. Is it worth upgrading or is 8 GB still enough for gaming? I mean, I am running games fine now, but I guess it is more of a future thing.

Thanks in advance for your response!

Well in my experience 8gb for gaming will hold just about any game out there without a difference. For me having 16gb on my system is a bit overkill for the gaming aspect (not for some of the work I end up doing) compared to when I had 8gb on my previous system. I tried an 8gb kit on my old system then a 16gb kit and it really made no difference in games at all that I could see. My current system will sometime exceed 9gb usage during gaming but even that is pretty rare.

Is it worth it, no I doubt you would see any difference. However if you want to just future proof that system and keep it for a very long time, you can get a kit for pretty cheap as far as ram goes.

micropage7 · Jul 22, 2015

just no. it might be cool has 16 gig ram but if wont affect much
better save it for something else

Ruyki · Jul 22, 2015

Generally 8GB is enough for games.

But you can monitor your memory usage from the task manager. Then you should be able to figure out if you need an upgrade by yourself.

AloadovBallacks · Jul 22, 2015

To be fair there isn't many games out ar the moment that require more than 4gb, but I recently upgraded from 8 to 16gb and I haven't noticed any difference at all

peche · Jul 22, 2015

Ruyki said:
Generally 8GB is enough for games.

pretty much .... im seeing here some posts about GTA V, in dont play and like those games, but i have a friend that plays 24/7 that game, with a single GTX 760 and 8GB ram on a core i5 without problems...

Disparia · Jul 22, 2015

It's on the line, what would make the difference is everyone's personal situation. I could make do with 8GB, but it's a lot nicer experience when I alt-tab out of a game to do something and it didn't have load that 'something' back into memory. With 16GB I'm up around 11-12GB usage and things are pretty fluid.

PLAfiller · Jul 22, 2015

I wouldn't bother. Life goes fast, I'd spend the money somewhere else.

peche · Jul 22, 2015

lZKoce said:
I wouldn't bother. Life goes fast, I'd spend the money somewhere else.

b*tches?

Devon68 · Jul 22, 2015

I don't think you need 16 gb.

I wouldn't bother. Life goes fast, I'd spend the money somewhere else.

Potatoes right?

PLAfiller · Jul 22, 2015

peche said:
b*tches?

Devon68 said:
I don't think you need 16 gb.

Potatoes right?

Ahahaha , alright alright I spoke too soon

)) Nothing goes under the radar on TPU

Pill Monster · Jul 22, 2015

testudo said:
I have a 6GB G1 980 ti on the way. Will that make a difference?

Yeah it will, but are u upgrading to W10?

Atm when you run DX11 in 8.1 the driver looks at your available vram then tells WDM (OS) that's how much RAM is needed for GPU paging (aka Tiled Resources etc).
Windows then allocates that RAM to the GPU and it cannot be used for anything else. Whether the allocated amount is actually used or even needed makes no difference, lol.

So if you got 16GB of RAM and 8GB VRAM, 8GB of RAM is sliced of before you start the game, leaving you with....yep, 8GB. It's take it or leave it and a huge waste of resources
Partly why 8.1 users with 16GB RAM ran out of memory or had stutter/lag issues in DX11 games after upgrading to 4GB GPU's or better.

Anyway this is one of the things WDDM 2.0/DX12 is meant to address. Memory management will be handled by the game, atm in W10 it's the drivers since there are no DX12 apps.
Features like dynamic resource allocation, memory reclaim and residency will mean any VRAM/RAM space tagged by the game or drivers for textures or whatever must be in use.
If not then that space has to be given up to the OS for other resources. Basically just means the game can't sit on 8GB of RAM (or VRAM) and not use it.

testudo · Jul 22, 2015

Pill Monster said:
Yeah it will, but are u upgrading to W10?

Atm when you run DX11 in 8.1 the driver looks at your available vram then tells WDM (OS) that's how much RAM is needed for GPU paging (aka Tiled Resources etc).
Windows then allocates that RAM to the GPU and it cannot be used for anything else. Whether the allocated amount is actually used or even needed makes no difference, lol.

So if you got 16GB of RAM and 8GB VRAM, 8GB of RAM is sliced of before you start the game, leaving you with....yep, 8GB. It's take it or leave it and a huge waste of resources
Partly why 8.1 users with 16GB RAM ran out of memory or had stutter/lag issues in DX11 games after upgrading to 4GB GPU's or better.

Anyway this is one of the things WDDM 2.0/DX12 is meant to address. Memory management will be handled by the game, atm in W10 it's the drivers since there are no DX12 apps.
Features like dynamic resource allocation, memory reclaim and residency will mean any VRAM/RAM space tagged by the game or drivers for textures or whatever must be in use.
If not then that space has to be given up to the OS for other resources. Basically just means the game can't sit on 8GB of RAM (or VRAM) and not use it.

Thanks!

Yes, I will be updating to Windows 10.

FireFox · Jul 22, 2015

rtwjunkie said:
I've said this several times in the last few months, and I think it's time for all of us to stop advising people that 8GB is all they need. We're a tech site, and it should be obvious which direction games are going, so we should be adapting as well.

Wise words :respect:

It's the end of 8GB are Overkill.

Toothless · Jul 22, 2015

Iunno about you guys, but the reason I had to go with 16GB is because I was filling up on 8GB, and sometimes I still hit 11-12GB usages. It all depends on what you do really.

Then again my laptop has 8GB and it barely touches 4GB usage. Silly me.

ThE_MaD_ShOt · Jul 22, 2015

Well I am thinking of moving up from 16gb to 32gb as the last upgrade for my main rig.

FireFox · Jul 22, 2015

ThE_MaD_ShOt said:
Well I am thinking of moving up from 16gb to 32gb as the last upgrade for my main rig.

Nice move

When I built my Machine around one year and a few months ago I did installed 32GB.

Note: I have thought that what was overkill at that time it wasn't going to be in a future.

EarthDog · Jul 22, 2015

rtwjunkie said:
EDIT: I've said this several times in the last few months, and I think it's time for all of us to stop advising people that 8GB is all they need. We're a tech site, and it should be obvious which direction games are going, so we should be adapting as well.

Sure.. I won't call 8GB overkill. I will call it standard. 16GB is overkill for most users. 8GB is 'all *most* need'. And until a specific use is mentioned that would put that 8GB limit in jeopardy, it is what I will continue to recommend.

Like was said earlier, it all depends on the OP's use. If he is pusing 6-7GB use at times, then I would say go for it. If the OP is under 6-7GB, save your money. There isn't a point to add ram if you are not going to use it (for the most part).

System Name	My rig
Processor	i7 3770k 3.5
Motherboard	Gigabyte UD4H
Cooling	Cooler Master Seidon 120M Push/Pull
Memory	8GB G.SKILL Ares Series (2 x 4GB) 1866 Mhz
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte GTX780 GDDR5-3GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP OC Graphics Card - GV-N780GHZ-3GD
Storage	Corsair Neutron 256 GB SSD/Western Digital 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache
Display(s)	ASUS 24" IPS 60Hz
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Audio Device(s)	N/A
Power Supply	Corsair Professional Series AX 850 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold
Software	Windows 8.1/Adobe Creative Cloud/Steam/Origin/UPlay

System Name	My rig
Processor	i7 3770k 3.5
Motherboard	Gigabyte UD4H
Cooling	Cooler Master Seidon 120M Push/Pull
Memory	8GB G.SKILL Ares Series (2 x 4GB) 1866 Mhz
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte GTX780 GDDR5-3GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP OC Graphics Card - GV-N780GHZ-3GD
Storage	Corsair Neutron 256 GB SSD/Western Digital 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache
Display(s)	ASUS 24" IPS 60Hz
Case	Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Arctic White
Audio Device(s)	N/A
Power Supply	Corsair Professional Series AX 850 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold
Software	Windows 8.1/Adobe Creative Cloud/Steam/Origin/UPlay

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System Name	My rig
Processor	i7 3770k 3.5
Motherboard	Gigabyte UD4H
Cooling	Cooler Master Seidon 120M Push/Pull
Memory	8GB G.SKILL Ares Series (2 x 4GB) 1866 Mhz
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte GTX780 GDDR5-3GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP OC Graphics Card - GV-N780GHZ-3GD
Storage	Corsair Neutron 256 GB SSD/Western Digital 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache
Display(s)	ASUS 24" IPS 60Hz
Case	Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Arctic White
Audio Device(s)	N/A
Power Supply	Corsair Professional Series AX 850 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold
Software	Windows 8.1/Adobe Creative Cloud/Steam/Origin/UPlay

Do I need to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB of RAM?

testudo

v12dock

Block Caption of Rainey Street

testudo

peche

Thermaltake fanboy

Pill Monster

Dbiggs9

testudo

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

GhostRyder

micropage7

Ruyki

AloadovBallacks

peche

Thermaltake fanboy

Disparia

PLAfiller

peche

Thermaltake fanboy

Devon68

PLAfiller

Pill Monster

testudo

FireFox

The Power Of Intel

Toothless

Tech, Games, and TPU!

ThE_MaD_ShOt

FireFox

The Power Of Intel

EarthDog

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