How much RAM does a PC need for games?

[kastriot]

Lol this thread is still going?

 

[spectatorx]

that amd 939 -was one of the last diamonds of amd

funny my buddy built a 990fx rig and still use his 939 over it swore it was a far better platform him and I never liked our 990fx build no matter what we spent or tried - I just junked it and weny to intell for my first time ever in 16 years .[and never looked back ]

.....

Athlon II/Phenom II were phenomenal cpus, i and my friends owned in total few of them. 6 core Thuban cpus (6 core by default or by unlocking) in some use-cases were better than most FX-series cpus, they aged not because of lack of performance but because of lack of newer instructions sets. I bet these cpus would be able to compete with low-end latest cpus. If anyone owns thuban cpu and latest i3 or ryzen 3/ryzen apu i would love to see such comparison, could be interesting. Also in favor of latest cpus would be much higher ram frequencies as thuban supported only ddr2 and, i'm not sure about this, maybe ddr3, would need to check this one.

 

[coonbro]

I dot recall look at the first black socket boards that made that cross over back when
https://www.techpowerup.com/143395/gigabyte-first-to-market-with-am3-black-socket-motherboards

I thought only intel mad a combo platform that could use ddr2 with supporting cpu's and ddr3 with that supporting cpu's in the same board socket [just not at the same time]

I don't think this ever came to life or market

AM3 board 790GX-8D
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/MSi-Eight-Memory-Slots,7214.html

but I think off the cuff those old amd cpu's did have ddr2 and ddr3 memory controllers '' AM3 processors, which support both DDR2 & DDR3 memory''

a combo board with one of the cpu's would easy do the comparison test

 

[Flyordie]

I could see more today with say just 8 something could go in to swap easier windows goes swap / Virtual Memory on its own regardless of memory amount . unlike a program that exceeds your memory amount and goes in to swap you don't see the massive slowdowns caused by it .

so far this is the only program I can use up to or exceed the 16 I use

http://www.numberworld.org/y-cruncher/

everyday all day use games what ever run I guess I average about 3.5 max of the 16 used . you can monitor use easy and see your average memory usage .

for me anyway 8 is cutting it a tad short and 16 is peace of mind and hard pressed to exceed for normal pc use and gaming . something poorly optimized like that finale fantasy bench you can get here will eat up to 6gb some times and some times just to 4 [crazy] or maybe a memory leaking game like crisis was , but still never seen it go over 6 or 8 gb

I meant that as more of a Threadripper vs Ryzen 7 platform. lol. Samsung B-Die to maintain all memory channels needs at least 32GB on TR4 or 16GB on AM4.

 

[AlwaysHope]

Lol this thread is still going?

Lol... it's a never ending question cause' game system requirements keep changing every new release.

 

[StrayKAT]

I would recommend 16gb, but it's really more than enough for a gamer. I haven't needed more in a long time. It's sort of strange. RAM used to always be the thing you'd never want "enough" of back in the day.

The only reason I want more now is stupid: To fill out all of my mobo's slots.

 

[GoldenX]

I think the sweet spot is near 12gb, too bad dual channel can't work with asymmetric RAM now day. My Phenom II could use a 4gb and a 2gb module and still have dual channel.

 

[spectatorx]

I think the sweet spot is near 12gb, too bad dual channel can't work with asymmetric RAM now day. My Phenom II could use a 4gb and a 2gb module and still have dual channel.

One of games which i know to be able to utilize more than 12GB of ram is rise of the tomb raider, with shadow of tomb raider this number may be higher. For a gamer i do not recommend less than 16GB unless said gamer has limited budget and needs to do some cuts then i would go with 8GB which in many cases is insufficient and will require to lower settings in order to avoid hitching caused by overfilled ram.

 

[coonbro]

I would recommend 16gb, but it's really more than enough for a gamer. I haven't needed more in a long time. It's sort of strange. RAM used to always be the thing you'd never want "enough" of back in the day.

The only reason I want more now is stupid: To fill out all of my mobo's slots.

lol... with todays LED light craze maybe come out with dumb memory sticks that just give off the led lighting affects ? you filled the slots and you got high performance led lighting ..lol,,, [that's 20 way user programmable ]

 

[jboydgolfer]

still running my 8Gb's from the start of this new PC, and have not had ANY issue regarding RAM quantity. i play some games, like....

GTAV
DarkSouls3
sim3/4
minecrap
& whatever else i cant recall. no prob.

 

[Laurijan]

For a budged gamer buy 2x8gb when it is on sale for like 200$ max and later when you have money to spare buy 2x4gb ram ontop. I did it the other way first 2x4gb to get the system running and later when i had the money the 2x8gb ontop.

 

[coonbro]

For a budged gamer buy 2x8gb when it is on sale for like 200$ max and later when you have money to spare buy 2x4gb ram ontop. I did it the other way first 2x4gb to get the system running and later when i had the money the 2x8gb ontop.

rule of thumb is never mix memory all ways buy a factory tested and matched kit

even the same brand part numbers and all may of had a ic change [that's always subject to change with out notice ] and just may be with in spec for and given run of the batch / better safe then sorry when you fight stability

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

In 2010, the recommended minimum was 2 x 4GB if you wanted to be able to lay AAA games ... since 2016, it's been 2 x 16GB. Can get away witjh yes, of course, but expect the bigger and better games to be negatively impacted. And please never stick single sticks ina diual channel board thinking yu can "get a 2nd one later".... it rarely ends well.

Do you mean 2x8gb?

 

[coonbro]

nothing wrong wit 2x16 as long as your cpu's memory controller is rock solid to handle the high density modules and run it stable at speed in turn it is easyer on it over 4 8gb sticks due to voltages use 2 sticks are 2 sticks worth .

its a fine line to what works great and just works out or not so well

look up your boards support of that and forums of your board on any memory issues to see if something common in line of what you want to do

 

[RealNeil]

RAM prices are outrageous these days. But they're slowly getting better as time goes by.

I have to have at least two 8GB sticks, (16GB) in my systems. (making sure that they're properly installed to utilize dual channel capabilities)
Over time, I usually add two more 8GB sticks (32GB) because I can.

Both of my i7-8700K boxes have four 8GB sticks (32GB) in them. (one has 3200MHz. and the other has 3466MHz.)

My 10 core i9-7900X box has 64GB of GSKill DDR4-3200MHz. RAM in it. (eight 8GB sticks)
My 8-core Ryzen 1700X has 64GB of HyperX DDR4-2400MHz. RAM in it. (four 16GB sticks)

 

[coonbro]

Lol this thread is still going?

thanks lol.. did not see it was may 5th .lol.. but still good for a slow rain day to post . all opinions are still good opinions on a subject

 

[er557]

The more ram you have, the better the games load times will be, as it is already in memory and not having to read from disc every reload. So even what seems excessive will still be of benefit, not to mention when multi-tasking. As to the game performance itself, an 8gb video card may still need to offload frame buffer and use shared system memory, so the more of that available and the faster it's performance, preferably quad channel, the more smooth the experience will be and with less stuttering. One should also look out for other system bottlenecks, aside from ram alone.

 

[coonbro]

so far monitoring memory use I used from 7 am today 2.6gb of my 16gb is all . maybe I need 16 more ?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

The more ram you have, the better the games load times will be, as it is already in memory and not having to read from disc every reload.

You're talking about Windows SuperFetch and...well...a picture is worth a thousand words:

It's using over 1/4 of my memory to cache a file for a game that hasn't been played in five months.

You can check yourself using RamMap.

Installing more memory to keep more data cached, therefore, is nonsensical.

so far monitoring memory use I used from 7 am today 2.6gb of my 16gb is all . maybe I need 16 more ?

Nay, sir! You should never settle for less than 1 TiB of RAM, sir![/sarcasm]

 

[Caring1]

I love open ended, vague questions such as the title, it leaves so much room for various answers and no one is wrong.

 

[StrayKAT]

lol... with todays LED light craze maybe come out with dumb memory sticks that just give off the led lighting affects ? you filled the slots and you got high performance led lighting ..lol,,, [that's 20 way user programmable ]

This was funny at first, but I honestly would do that if I could. lol

My board holds 128GB.. it'd cost at least $1500-1600 to fill these slots out.

 

[er557]

@FordGT90Concept :
No, I was not talking about pre-fetching, I was talking about in-game RE-loading, and when you launch the game again in the near future. i.e. when you load a new level, or re-start a saved game, I specifically saw vast improvements in consecutive load times and after launching the game again, because the data never leaves the ram after it was loaded, due to plenty ram available.

 

[robot zombie]

lol... with todays LED light craze maybe come out with dumb memory sticks that just give off the led lighting affects ? you filled the slots and you got high performance led lighting ..lol,,, [that's 20 way user programmable ]

This was funny at first, but I honestly would do that if I could. lol

My board holds 128GB.. it'd cost at least $1500-1600 to fill these slots out.

Pretty sure Gigabyte makes 2x8 kits that include two dummy sticks. All RGB.

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GP-AR32C16S8K2SU416R-AORUS-Memory-3200MHz/dp/B07FFBWPWT

 

[StrayKAT]

Pretty sure Gigabyte makes 2x8 kits that include two dummy sticks. All RGB.

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GP-AR32C16S8K2SU416R-AORUS-Memory-3200MHz/dp/B07FFBWPWT

How funny..

Too bad I don't have a Gigabyte. I'd probably use it. lol

 

[bonehead123]

ram, bam, thank ya ma'am.....

feed da pig and keep it full...

buy as much as YOU think you need/afford, plus a bit more, and be happy

at least until the next upgrade cycle rolls around....