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
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

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

System Name	Athenna
Processor	intel i7 3770 Dellided
Motherboard	GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Rev. 1.1
Cooling	Thermaltake Water 3.0 Pro + Tt Riing12 x2 / Tt ThunderBlade / Gelid Slim 120UV fans
Memory	16GB DRR3 Kingoston with Custom Tt spreaders + HyperX Fan
Video Card(s)	GeForce GTX 980 4GB Nvidia Sample
Storage	Crucial M4 SSD 64GB's / Seagate Barracuda 2TB / Seagate Barracuda 320GB's
Display(s)	22" LG FLATRON 1920 x 1280p
Case	Thermaltake Commander G42 Window
Audio Device(s)	On-board Dolby 5.1+ Kingston HyperX Cloud 1
Power Supply	Themaltake TR2 700W 80plus bronce & APC Pro backup 1000Va
Mouse	Tt eSports Level 10M Rev 1.0 Diamond Black & Tt Conkor "L" mouse pad
Keyboard	Tt eSports KNUCKER
Software	windows 10x64Pro
Benchmark Scores	well I've fried a 775' P4 12 years ago, that counts?

System Name	His - Hers - Guest - Guest - Guest
Processor	2700X - i7 5960x - i7 990x - 930 -i7 870 - i7 870
Motherboard	MSI B450 ITX - Evga X99 - X58 - x58 - P55 FTW 200's
Memory	16GB - 8G
Video Card(s)	Radeon VII - GTX770 x 3
Storage	SSD
Display(s)	4K
Case	Antec 1200, 1200, 900, 900
Power Supply	Antec 1200 watt
Software	Windows 7 Windows 10
Benchmark Scores	Who cares

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

Processor	Core i9-9900k
Motherboard	ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 6
Cooling	All air: 2x140mm Fractal exhaust; 3x 140mm Cougar Intake; Enermax ETS-T50 Black CPU cooler
Memory	32GB (2x16) Mushkin Redline DDR-4 3200
Video Card(s)	ASUS RTX 4070 Ti Super OC 16GB
Storage	1x 1TB MX500 (OS); 2x 6TB WD Black; 1x 2TB MX500; 1x 1TB BX500 SSD; 1x 6TB WD Blue storage (eSATA)
Display(s)	Infievo 27" 165Hz @ 2560 x 1440
Case	Fractal Design Define R4 Black -windowed
Audio Device(s)	Soundblaster Z
Power Supply	Seasonic Focus GX-1000 Gold
Mouse	Coolermaster Sentinel III (large palm grip!)
Keyboard	Logitech G610 Orion mechanical (Cherry Brown switches)
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Start10 & Fences 3.0 installed)

System Name	SnowFire / The Reinforcer
Processor	i7 10700K 5.1ghz (24/7) / 2x Xeon E52650v2
Motherboard	Asus Strix Z490 / Dell Dual Socket (R720)
Cooling	RX 360mm + 140mm Custom Loop / Dell Stock
Memory	Corsair RGB 16gb DDR4 3000 CL 16 / DDR3 128gb 16 x 8gb
Video Card(s)	GTX Titan XP (2025mhz) / Asus GTX 950 (No Power Connector)
Storage	Samsung 970 1tb NVME and 2tb HDD x4 RAID 5 / 300gb x8 RAID 5
Display(s)	Acer XG270HU, Samsung G7 Odyssey (1440p 240hz)
Case	Thermaltake Cube / Dell Poweredge R720 Rack Mount Case
Audio Device(s)	Realtec ALC1150 (On board)
Power Supply	Rosewill Lightning 1300Watt / Dell Stock 750 / Brick
Mouse	Logitech G5
Keyboard	Logitech G19S
Software	Windows 11 Pro / Windows Server 2016

System Name	maipc
Processor	4790k @ 4.4Ghz / 1.16v
Motherboard	Asus vii hero
Cooling	Noctua NH-D14
Memory	16GB (2x8GB) Hyperx fury 1866 / CL10
Video Card(s)	MSI RTX 3060 Ti Gaming X 8GB
Storage	1TB 860EVO + 1TB 860EVO + 4TB WD Red + 4TB WD Red
Display(s)	Asus VG259QM (1080p IPS 240Hz)
Case	Cooler Master Centurion 6
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime GX-650
Mouse	Logitech G Pro X Superlight
Keyboard	Wooting 60HE
Software	Win 10 64bit

Processor	Intel Core i5 i5-4690K
Motherboard	Asus Maximus VII Formula Intel Z97
Cooling	Corsair h100i
Memory	16 gig corsair vengeance pro
Video Card(s)	Msi gtx 980 oc 5g
Storage	Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
Case	Corsair air 540
Power Supply	Corsair RM750
Software	Windows 8.1

Processor	Intel i5-6600
Motherboard	ASRock H170M-ITX
Cooling	Cooler Master Geminii S524
Memory	G.Skill DDR4-2133 16GB (8GB x 2)
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte R9-380X 4GB
Storage	Samsung 950 EVO 250GB (mSATA)
Display(s)	LG 29UM69G-B 2560x1080 IPS
Case	Lian Li PC-Q25
Audio Device(s)	Realtek ALC892
Power Supply	Seasonic SS-460FL2
Mouse	Logitech G700s
Keyboard	Logitech G110
Software	Windows 10 Pro

System Name	PLAHI
Processor	I5-10400
Motherboard	MSI MPG Z490 GAMING PLUS
Cooling	120 AIO IWONGOU
Memory	1x32GB Kingston BEAST DDR4 @ 3200Mhz
Video Card(s)	PNY QUADRO RTX A2000
Storage	Intel 670P 512GB
Display(s)	Philips 288E2A 28" 4K + 22" LG 1080p
Case	Silverstone Raven 03 (RV03)
Audio Device(s)	Creative Soundblaster Z
Power Supply	Fractal Design IntegraM 650W
Mouse	Logitech Triathlon
Keyboard	REDRAGON MITRA
Software	Windows 11 Home x 64

System Name	Ryzen 2023
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 7700
Motherboard	Asrock B650E Steel Legend Wifi
Cooling	Noctua NH-D15
Memory	G Skill Flare X5 2x16gb cl32@6000 MHz
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro + gaming Oc
Storage	WESTERN DIGITAL 1TB 64MB 7k SATA600 Blue WD10EZEX, WD Black SN850X 1Tb nvme
Display(s)	LG 27GP850P-B
Case	Corsair 5000D airflow tempered glass
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime GX-850W
Mouse	A4Tech V7M bloody
Keyboard	Genius KB-G255
Software	Windows 10 64bit

Processor	Intel i7 10700K
Motherboard	Asus ROG Maximus XII Hero
Cooling	2x Black Ice Nemesis GTX 480 - 1x Black Ice Nemesis GTX 420 - D5 VPP655P - 13x Corsair LL120 - LL140
Memory	32GB G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 3600Hz
Video Card(s)	EVGA GEFORCE RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra
Storage	Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 500GB/1TB - WD Blue SN550 1TB - 2 X WD Blue 1TB - 3 X WD Black 1TB
Display(s)	Asus ROG PG278QR 2560x1440 144Hz (Overclocked 165Hz )/ Samsung
Case	Corsair Obsidian 1000D
Audio Device(s)	I prefer Gaming-Headset
Power Supply	Enermax MaxTytan 1250W 80+ Titanium
Mouse	Logitech G502 spectrum
Keyboard	Virtuis Advanced Gaming Keyboard ( Batboard )
Software	Windows 10 Enterprise/Windows 10 Pro/Windows 11 Pro
Benchmark Scores	My PC runs FiFA

System Name	Veral
Processor	7800x3D
Motherboard	x670e Asus Crosshair Hero
Cooling	Corsair H150i RGB Elite
Memory	2x24 Klevv Cras V RGB
Video Card(s)	Powercolor 7900XTX Red Devil
Storage	Crucial P5 Plus 1TB, Samsung 980 1TB, Teamgroup MP34 4TB
Display(s)	Acer Nitro XZ342CK Pbmiiphx, 2x AOC 2425W, AOC I1601FWUX
Case	Fractal Design Meshify Lite 2
Audio Device(s)	Blue Yeti + SteelSeries Arctis 5 / Samsung HW-T550
Power Supply	Corsair HX850
Mouse	Corsair Nightsword
Keyboard	Corsair K55
VR HMD	HP Reverb G2
Software	Windows 11 Professional
Benchmark Scores	PEBCAK

System Name	Agent Texas / Selene / Eve
Processor	Ryzen7 5800x / Fx 8350 / Fx 8350
Motherboard	Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite Ax V2 / Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 r4.0 / Msi 970a Krait
Cooling	Msi Mag Core liquid / H100i / Cryo-pc Cooler
Memory	2 x32 GB Gskil Ripjaws v series / 4x 8gb G.Skill Snipers / 2x 8gb G.Skill Ripjaws
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte Rx 6800xt / Msi RX580 / Gigabyte R9 290x
Storage	1tb M.2, 2tb wd / 500 gb ssd, 2x 2tb Wd Blacks/ 500 gb ssd, 1tb WD Black
Display(s)	Dell Ultra Sharp 2408 WFp / Hp w2207 / Sanyo tv
Case	Corsair 780t White / Raidmax Vampire / NZXT Phantom 240
Audio Device(s)	Onboard Hd Audio / Onboard Hd Audio / Onboard Hd Audio
Power Supply	Corsair Rm 850 watt / Corsair TX 850 watt / Corsair TX 750 watt
Mouse	Logitech G502 Hero / Logitech G500s / Logitech wireless
Keyboard	Corsair Strafe / Corsair k50 / Logitech wireless
Software	Win 11 pro / Win 11 pro / Win 11 pro
Benchmark Scores	What are benchmarks anyway?