RAM question?

[Cigarjohn]

In all your opinions, what is considered the minimum and maximum RAM one would need for gaming?


Peace.


P.S. This should be set up as a poll.

 

[Ma$termind]

At the moment I'd say 4GB is all that's necessary for gaming, though I wouldn't do a new build with less than that. More is only needed for high amounts of multitasking (while gaming) or for special uses (video/photo editing, rendering, etc).

 

[Cigarjohn]

At the moment I'd say 4GB is all that's necessary for gaming, though I wouldn't do a new build with less than that. More is only needed for high amounts of multitasking (while gaming) or for special uses (video/photo editing, rendering, etc).

So 8 wold be fine but 16 may be a little overkill for just gaming?

 

[Cigarjohn]

How about Latency? 7, 8, 9 ???? Does it really make a difference? Will I see a difference in performance?


Peace.

 

[Ma$termind]

16GB would be way overkill unless you are doing huge amounts of video/photo editing. 8GB is way more than enough for just gaming. To be honest, if you're just gaming you should be fine with 4GB.

For latency, it depends on your chipset. For AMD chipsets you see (marginally) better performance with DDR3-1333 CL7. For Intel you're (again, marginally) better off with DDR3-1600 CL9. Past DDR3-1600 most systems won't show much real-world improvement below CL9. Unless you're trying to break specific benchmarking scores, than I wouldn't bother with getting anything faster than that.

 

[iEye Captain]

I play BC2 on max settings, use MSN, stream videos at the same time (loading them, not watching them.. while playing bc2..) ..

On 4GB RAM.

Not even the expensive gaming-grade RAM.

Just your ol' run-of-the-mill cheapo RAM.

 

[anomaly]

You'll only need more then 4gb of ram unless you are rendering or video editing. However, with how cheap RAM is atm, I'd go for 8gb.

 

[Cigarjohn]

16GB would be way overkill unless you are doing huge amounts of video/photo editing. 8GB is way more than enough for just gaming. To be honest, if you're just gaming you should be fine with 4GB.

For latency, it depends on your chipset. For AMD chipsets you see (marginally) better performance with DDR3-1333 CL7. For Intel you're (again, marginally) better off with DDR3-1600 CL9. Past DDR3-1600 most systems won't show much real-world improvement below CL9. Unless you're trying to break specific benchmarking scores, than I wouldn't bother with getting anything faster than that.

Thanks for your advice. Was going for the G.Skill Ripjaws X series. I talked to G.Skill's tech department and they told me the X series would be compatible with the Rampage IV Extreme mobo I'm going with. But I also like that P8P67 WS mobo. But it will probably be the Rampage IV Extreme.

How do you like your C300? I'm going with one of them also in SATA III and (2) 256 C300's in a RAID 0 config for games only.

I also see the new M4's are coming out in two weeks from speaking with Crucial Techs. But I think I'm going to stay with the C300's. They seem to have a good track record and their firmware has really matured.

I like the PC Power & Cooling PSU's but don't like that they are now owned by OCZ and will be eliminating the PC Power & Cooling line of PSU's. However, they will continue to support all the PC Power & Cooling consumers out there.

I'm going with the Antec HCP-1200.

Check out this great segment on RAM from Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-vengeance-crucial-ballistix-kingston-hyperX,2907.html

Peace.

 

[Ph?bus]

The C300 is a great SSD. Although putting your games on them won't make the games run any faster. It might improve load times, but that's it.

Why do you need a 1200W PSU?

 

[Cigarjohn]

The C300 is a great SSD. Although putting your games on them won't make the games run any faster. It might improve load times, but that's it.

Why do you need a 1200W PSU?

For heavy overclocking purposes, Multiple hard drive setups, SLI overclocking and I love to waste energy. I always try to buy more than I need. Its piece of mind for me. Plus I do intense liquid cooling at the sever levels.


Peace.

 

[crackdaddy]

John,
for a 32 bit os.
2 gigs min/ and never more than 4 gigs. and actually its 3.25 gigs but you get my drift.

But..
the actual games themselves rarely use over a few hundred or if its bloaty even a gig of memory.

But there is some very good reasons for expanding your memory beyond your immediate needs when you are building a pc. Quite often if your buying something, that takes, for instance, say DDR3 memory, often its the cheapest it will ever be, right now. This is a good time to buy all you think you may ever need. No, it won't help you run crysis any faster.

But it will help you listen to music, while downloading a video, and while burning a dvd, and while surfing the web, etc. etc all at the same time.. so at $10 gig , I think 8 gigs is a really solid number to have around. Its better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it, right? And later if you decide that you do need it, but you didn't buy it during the sweet spot of the development cycle? It now may be twice what it was, or even more, and now its no longer a value and you will get less of a return on your investment.

 

[Cigarjohn]

John,
for a 32 bit os.
2 gigs min/ and never more than 4 gigs. and actually its 3.25 gigs but you get my drift.

But..
the actual games themselves rarely use over a few hundred or if its bloaty even a gig of memory.

But there is some very good reasons for expanding your memory beyond your immediate needs when you are building a pc. Quite often if your buying something, that takes, for instance, say DDR3 memory, often its the cheapest it will ever be, right now. This is a good time to buy all you think you may ever need. No, it won't help you run crysis any faster.

But it will help you listen to music, while downloading a video, and while burning a dvd, and while surfing the web, etc. etc all at the same time.. so at $10 gig , I think 8 gigs is a really solid number to have around. Its better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it, right? And later if you decide that you do need it, but you didn't buy it during the sweet spot of the development cycle? It now may be twice what it was, or even more, and now its no longer a value and you will get less of a return on your investment.

I totally agree with you. I use to do a lot of video editing at the extreme level but stop doing it. Got burned out. But I think I'm going to purchase (2) 4 gig ram sticks for a total of 8 gigs and if down the road I need more, I can just purchase another 4 gig stick.

Peace and thanks for your insight on this matter.

 

[The Slayer]

get 64 bit and get 6-8. So u have always enough. I'd say 6 if u work with trippel channel. 8 if u work with dual channel. Also take high frequency ram. my ram is 1600MHz. Ram in laptops for example have 1333MHz. I think.

 

[Ph?bus]

get 64 bit and get 6-8. So u have always enough. I'd say 6 if u work with trippel channel. 8 if u work with dual channel. Also take high frequency ram. my ram is 1600MHz. Ram in laptops for example have 1333MHz. I think.

I agree with this. At least about the 64-bit part. It's the smarter choice. 32-bit is slowing dying out.

 

[eurocracy]

I play games on 2GB RAM... but anyway, I would say go for 4gb, helps with multitasking, hard to alt tab out of game with only 2gb RAM.

 

[reflex99]

i would put it like this:

2GB-min

4GB-fine

8-GB nice to have.

With 2GB most stuff seems playable. 4 makes it much better, and 8 allows me to leave open all of my programs and stuff while gaming.

 

[The Slayer]

i would put it like this:

2GB-min

4GB-fine

8-GB nice to have.

With 2GB most stuff seems playable. 4 makes it much better, and 8 allows me to leave open all of my programs and stuff while gaming.

i second this