is 16gb or 32gb of ram too much for gaming

[NobunagaOda]

i already had GSKILL RIPJAWSX 4GBX2 1600Mhz. i wonder if 16gb or even 32 will make much difference in games?

 

[Cerb]

Maybe. Well, really, almost certainly. Only a handful of games can make use of anywhere near that much (mainly because so few PCs have more), but background processes could be using a lot, if you don't close them.

Maybe not.

Learn to figure it out, for your usage of your computer.

 

[blastingcap]

It won't make a difference compared to 8GB unless you are running programs in the background that also eat a lot of memory forcing you to go to disk or something. Even next gen games will use no more than a grand total of 8GB for system + video RAM.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I built my SB 2600K system for general use to include games, "running" my AV-Receiver and HDTV, rendering . . .. business . . . etc. I started with 8GB or 2x4GB G.SKILLs.

Before I was absolutely sure that there is some 3rd generation "memory leak" with Media Center when it performs DVR recording, I thought I needed more RAM, so I doubled the G.SKILLs with a second kit of the same model. I might have just bought a 2x8GB kit, but it didn't seem worth the outlay.

These days, no matter what I do, memory usage never exceeds 50% with 16GB.

It's your choice. Upgrading a 2-slot configuration with 4-slots of modules isn't very expensive.

The B**** is in the testing. I've said it several times here: the 1000% "thorough" HCI-Memtest took me between 4 and 4.5 days. I say -- nearly 5 days just for the "successful" run. Figure I went 300% before errors the first time, 500% the second time. That's almost 9 days total just to add 8GB RAM to the system. Of course, I was over-clocking the RAM, so the trial and error figured into the marathon.

 

[nenforcer]

No, it won't.

There are some reports of BF4 using upwards of 10GB of system memory when running at like 4K resolution.

Unless you are running multiple server enabled virtual machines and want to allocate more than 4GB ram per machine there aren't many uses cases for more than 16GB ram.

I'm still using 4GB on the machine I'm typing on and my new build has 8GB as it's target.

 

[nwo]

It won't make any difference in games unless you are running at 4-5+GB of background apps or are using system RAM for cache.

 

[tweakboy]

8GB, future games 16GB ,, so get it before hand. Then again prices have shot up. gl

 

[_Rick_]

No, you only have too much RAM when you cannot physically fit it into any more slots on your mainboard. Until then, every GB can be put to use.
I'm idling at the desktop with 16GB in use, most of that is either the memory leak in the ASUS software, or web browsers.
Especially the browsers are something I'd rather not close and reopen on every occasion where I want to play a game, so having some memory that can be quickly freed (but is used for I/O cache) is very nice.

 

[Morbus]

Especially the browsers are something I'd rather not close and reopen on every occasion where I want to play a game, so having some memory that can be quickly freed (but is used for I/O cache) is very nice.

This.

16GB is overkill for most gaming (as in 99,9%) and a bit too much for the rest, but just knowing that I don't have to worry about RAM usage, that's priceless. Well, not priceless, about the same price as the second 8GB DIMM

 

[XiandreX]

No, it won't.

There are some reports of BF4 using upwards of 10GB of system memory when running at like 4K resolution.

Unless you are running multiple server enabled virtual machines and want to allocate more than 4GB ram per machine there aren't many uses cases for more than 16GB ram.

I'm still using 4GB on the machine I'm typing on and my new build has 8GB as it's target.

Honestly with budgets nowadays, for most people anyways, 8Gigs is more than enough and then some.
If you render Video for example I assume that having more might help.

If you are looking for ways to improve system performance there are far better ways to improve that area instead of a memory upgrade. Again this is now including cutting edge games.

Video card, CPU and SSD drives would probably be your best improvements depending on your day to day tasks.

 

[Biggu]

most times 8GB is overkill. On my mini ITX build im going to only do 8gb and that's it.

 

[piasabird]

If you are loading big maps or something that might really help. If you use a SSD, they say More RAM makes the SSD work better and last longer. I kind of wonder if there is much advantage going from 16 - 32 Gigs of RAM. I think maybe we should change how we package RAM and put 6 gigs on a stick of RAM for a total of 12 gigs?

There is probably some study that says there is not much advantage to go over 8 gigs unless you are doing some memory intensive tasks like computer graphics or animation or photoshop or some kind of Multimedia encoding.

Then there are those people who like to have like 20-120 windows open at once.

 

[jolancer]

Didnt see anyone mention this yet..
Those with modern machines who have tested this can correct me if this no longer applies

Use to be in some case's, Adding more *unnecessary ram would actually lower your gaming performance.. in terms of stability for tighter ram timings. The more slots and chips the mem controller had to address the looser the timings had to be for system stability. That is if you were squeezing the most out of your timings. I don't know if it would affect default timings

If you use a SSD, they say More RAM makes the SSD work better and last longer.

Thats probably only in reference to page files, if u even have pagefiles enabled.

 

[therealnickdanger]

I didn't have to sacrifice my RAM timings with my 3570K. 1866 @ 9-9-9-24, which was actually better than the original memory I had when I built the system.

I didn't really notice any improvement games (up from 2x4GB) other than faster application switching via alt+tab. I'm not the type of person that has a lot of tabs open at once and my old school habits of closing down additional programs to free up RAM persist to this day. However, when I'm working in Premiere and AE, the difference is astounding.

 

[cytg111]

32G's and some years down the road I can retire it to server duty. + in the meantime, i really dont have to worry about having enough of it (doing virtual machines too..)

 

[bononos]

It won't make a difference compared to 8GB unless you are running programs in the background that also eat a lot of memory forcing you to go to disk or something. Even next gen games will use no more than a grand total of 8GB for system + video RAM.

Is it possible to more or less directly extrapolate the memory used by xbone/ps4 to pc usage? Wouldn't windows/dx111 be more inefficient and memory hungry compared to consoles?

 

[Red Squirrel]

16GB is a nice amount for a workstation, but there's nothing wrong with putting 32GB if you don't mind spending the extra especially if you do lot of work with VMs. Imagine you have a VM lab environment going on using 10-15GB and someone asks if you want to play a few rounds of a game. You can just hop right into the game without even worrying about the ram. Not to mention browser, email and other stuff you may have open too.

With anything past XP I would never run with less than 8GB. At 4 you will see lot of low memory warnings and always have to close stuff. 8GB is probably more than good enough for most people, but 16 is not all that much more expensive so it only makes sense.

 

[nenforcer]

With anything past XP I would never run with less than 8GB. At 4 you will see lot of low memory warnings and always have to close stuff. 8GB is probably more than good enough for most people, but 16 is not all that much more expensive so it only makes sense.

This is how my memory upgrades have gone starting with the PC in my SIG

Windows XP = 2 x 512MB = 1GB Dual Channel
Windows Vista = 2 x 1GB = 2GB
Windows 7 = 2 x 2GB = 4GB
Windows 8 = 2 x 4GB = 8GB

and you right I have run into low memory issue with 4GB on Windows 7 when playing games but only when Aero is enabled. I think if you disable Aero and go back to the Windows Classic interface you save a bunch of GPU and Memory resources.

It's probably one of the reasons they ditched Aero in Windows 8.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Nah.

 

[ali1988]

I don't know about you guys but one of the systems I have with just 8GB of memory struggles with battlefield 4 everytime with firefox open in the background (which is every time due to battlelog being required to launch the game). Talking mega stuttering and freezes until or unless I shutdown firefox then it's all smooth as butter.

Just something to bear in mind. I'm assuming most people leave their web browsers open in background when gaming. I guess it doesn't help that mine typically has few hundred tabs open, but even when it's just a few dozen firefox always manages to eat up 1-2GB of memory somehow which is enough to starve BF4.

TL DR; 16GB is necessary for current games like BF4.

 

[Carfax83]

With multiple 64 bit games coming down the pipeline this year, 16GB will no longer be considered overkill for gaming. It may well end up as the new "sweet spot."

32GB is definitely overkill for just gaming though. Leave that for the professionals that can actually use that much memory..

 

[KentState]

Back when memory was very exspensive, I would say buy what you actually use and maybe a little more. Today, it's cheap enough that 8GB should be the minimum if you play at a decent resolution and use Windows 7 or 8.

 

[TheSlamma]

I've been running 16gb on my current system for over a year now and one reason I love it is the lack of page file usage. If you bring up perfmon and watch your pagefile hits with 16gb of RAM on Win7-64 even in BF4 my pagefile never gets use.

For me that is a big change from every time I closed down a large game hearing the 1-2 minute power grind my harddrive would do clearing that thing out.

16gb is worth it IMO

 

[Kippa]

I think newer 64bit RTS games might start to use 8gb+. The game Planetary Annihilation used 9.5gb of ram in my rig once, that was the game alone excluding os usage, probably using 10 to 11gb of ram. Mind you, you have to bear in mind that was when I was playing that particular game and it was an Alpha version and wasn't optimised, it is now in Beta and doesn't use as much ram.

Still in the near future I really can see PC RTS games in particular using more than 8gb of ram. I don't think Planetary Annihilation is going to be the exception. I bet there will be more memory eating RTS games coming out in the next 12 to 24 months that will probably use more than 8gb given the chance.

 

[sf101]

8GB kits are generally more than needed atm.

16gb kit not needed yet but many would consider it just thinking ahead Keep in mind these 2 stick kits may under perform timings wise.

32GB kit though for gaming will never be used in the lifetime of your current pc unless you keep pcs past normal 3-4 year refresh intervals.