Old Gamer Memory Upgrade Worth It?

[rockit00]

I am thinking about upgrading the memory on my old gaming rig. Specs are: MSI Z97 Gaming 5 motherboard with 16GB ( 4x4) GB of Corsair Vengeance PC3 modules. They are mismatched with 8GB of PC3-10700 plus 8GB of PC3-10700H modules. I am looking at a 32GB (4x8) GB set of Kingston Hyper X Genesis modules as pictured. What improvements, if any could I see with an upgrade to PC3-14900 1866Mhz matched modules? I'm using an i7 4790k @ 4GHz and an RX 580 8GB GPU.

 

[dgianstefani]

Not really worth it. Save for a Zen 3 or 12th gen Intel upgrade instead, or newer.

 

[rockit00]

Well I just upgraded to a Z390, i7 8700k, RX 6600 XT rig going forward. I just want to get the last bit of performance from my old retro gaming rig. I don't need all that 12th gen or Zen firepower or expense as I don't game as much as I used to. Movies, Music, Surfing, and Light Gaming these days.

Not really worth it. Save for a Zen 3 or 12th gen Intel upgrade instead, or newer.

 

[68Olds]

Doesn't sound like you're doing anything to come close to using 16GB, are you? If not, upgrading to 32GB is kinda pointless IMO.

 

[rockit00]

Well I've noticed my old rig (Z97) is slow in Windows 10 loading icons and booting up compared to my new Z390 rig which has 32GB (16x2) and is a lot snappier than than the Z97 rig. It could be that I need a fresh Windows 10 install or that the old Haswell rig has reached its limitations as configured.

Doesn't sound like you're doing anything to come close to using 16GB, are you? If not, upgrading to 32GB is kinda pointless IMO.

 

[nomdeplume]

Well I've noticed my old rig (Z97) is slow in Windows 10 loading icons and booting up compared to my new Z390 rig which has 32GB (16x2) and is a lot snappier than than the Z97 rig. It could be that I need a fresh Windows 10 install or that the old Haswell rig has reached its limitations as configured.

Just an offhand idea.

Single language version of early release build W11 with matched 8GB you have on hand. If Vanilla W11 boots/loads icons fast in that configuration I doubt RAM size is your limiter. 2x8GB would likely be sufficient for a Z97 media server.

 

[dgianstefani]

Lol. It's not related to RAM that your pc is slower, just an older system with weaker st etc. Adding more RAM from 16 to 32 won't magically make your 4 GB Windows install boot faster.

 

[rockit00]

Well the old Haswell is due for a good cleaning in the near future. I'll probably migrate my gaming installs to my Z390 dual Windows 10/11 boot machine and leave the Haswell as is. I saw the Kingston Hyper X deal and wondered what if. The Z97 is still my # 2 machine and still performs well as is. I'll tinker around with it but, If it ain't broke, I won't try to Fix it. Thanks to all for the input.

 

[redeye]

Well the old Haswell is due for a good cleaning in the near future. I'll probably migrate my gaming installs to my Z390 dual Windows 10/11 boot machine and leave the Haswell as is. I saw the Kingston Hyper X deal and wondered what if. The Z97 is still my # 2 machine and still performs well as is. I'll tinker around with it but, If it ain't broke, I won't try to Fix it. Thanks to all for the input.

go for it, your rig will be smokin’…

 

[DudeBeFishing]

I'd get an SSD for it, if you don't have one.

More RAM probably won't help for your usecase, and 1866Mhz might not do much if the timings are bad. I'd try getting 2133Mhz or 2400Mhz working. There's OEM Samsung RAM that have a lot of overclocking headroom. All of my 4GB modules with part number ending in "DH0-###" Can do 2133Mhz 9-10-10 at 1.5V. They should be able to do higher, but it depends on tne CPU's memory controller.

 

[rockit00]

An SSD is not appealing at the moment but would be a sure boost. I am running a dual boot Windows 10 Home setup with two Seagate 1TB SSHD's. A matched pair of 8GB 2400 memory modules would give me 16GB total and un-populate two DIMM slots as recommended by MSI. I'm also wondering how much SSHD's degrade over time. They have been running since 2014. At any rate something to think about. @redeye LOL, there is one in every crowd.

 

[Princess Garnet]

If you're running from an HDD, that's likely the main cause of the slow boot. More RAM won't make Windows boot faster unless you have a lack of RAM to begin with.

The likely reason two DIMMs is recommended over four by the motherboard manual is because it's (generally) easier to stabilize less DIMMs rather than more, but... you're already past that barrier (your four DIMMs are able to be stabilized), so you'll gain nothing to change it.

If you're looking to spend money on that at all, get an SSD. The rest isn't worth further investment; it's a 12 year old platform. 16 GB was already a lot in its time and there really is no going higher than a hyper-threaded quad core on that socket. You're basically already maxed out. Except for the HDD. SSHDs are just HDDs with an SSD cache. Yes, they are faster than HDDs when looking at their median performance... but PCs are only as fast as the slowest link in the chain. During bootup, it still has to load that data from the HDD just as if it were an HDD. That's the biggest reason why it's slow.

Now if your slightly newer PC also boots from an SSHD and is faster, then that would mean the reason the older is slower is simply down to it being slower. And if that's the case (if both systems are booting from SSHDs), then I would say the best way to spend money would be an SSD for the main system, and then the second best way to spend money would be an SSD for the secondary system. SSDs are the best general performance upgrade you can make that has come out over the last two decades.

 

[nomdeplume]

BIOS support for SSD was quite honestly and afterthought on his chipset. Was pretty sure they were uninterested so I tried the second item down the list, W11 "Lite."

 

[rockit00]

Yes the Z97 has M.2 2280 PCIe Gen2 x2 slot. I'm not sure on BIOS support but I can reread the manual. SSHD's were drives of choice for capacity, speed and affordability back then. W11 Pro upgrade on my Z390 gives me random blue screens on my 2TB SSHD and is guaranteed to cause problems on the Z97. I may try W11 "Lite" when I tear down the Z97 for cleaning. SSD's are becoming more affordable these days. I don't know much about them but I guess I need to do my research on them for a future upgrade.

 

[Realtab]

Yes the Z97 has M.2 2280 PCIe Gen2 x2 slot. I'm not sure on BIOS support but I can reread the manual. SSHD's were drives of choice for capacity, speed and affordability back then. W11 Pro upgrade on my Z390 gives me random blue screens on my 2TB SSHD and is guaranteed to cause problems on the Z97. I may try W11 "Lite" when I tear down the Z97 for cleaning. SSD's are becoming more affordable these days. I don't much about them but I guess I need to do my research on them for a future upgrade.

I don't think anything you could do with that system would be more beneficial to the performance than going to a SSD for your boot drive, even if it just a regular one. It will probably feel like night and day. Try to find one with DRAM.

 

[DudeBeFishing]

M.2 isn't needed, but looking at SSD prices, Sata and M.2 are about the same for the drives that have cache. Both are better than a spinning platter drive.

If you want to go cheap, you can get enterprise Sata SSD's on the used market. I have a few in my old X58 PC. They have high writes, but have about 75% life expectency according to smart data. I don't use that PC much and I don't store anything important on it.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well I just upgraded to a Z390, i7 8700k, RX 6600 XT rig going forward. I just want to get the last bit of performance from my old retro gaming rig. I don't need all that 12th gen or Zen firepower or expense as I don't game as much as I used to. Movies, Music, Surfing, and Light Gaming these days.

More ram doesnt hurt

 

[lexluthermiester]

I am thinking about upgrading the memory on my old gaming rig. Specs are: MSI Z97 Gaming 5 motherboard with 16GB ( 4x4) GB of Corsair Vengeance PC3 modules. They are mismatched with 8GB of PC3-10700 plus 8GB of PC3-10700H modules. I am looking at a 32GB (4x8) GB set of Kingston Hyper X Genesis modules as pictured. What improvements, if any could I see with an upgrade to PC3-14900 1866Mhz matched modules? I'm using an i7 4790k @ 4GHz and an RX 580 8GB GPU.

Hell yes, go for it! Max that puppy out and let it shine! I would put an RX5700XT in it as well.

More ram doesnt hurt

This.

 

[AusWolf]

Yes the Z97 has M.2 2280 PCIe Gen2 x2 slot. I'm not sure on BIOS support but I can reread the manual. SSHD's were drives of choice for capacity, speed and affordability back then. W11 Pro upgrade on my Z390 gives me random blue screens on my 2TB SSHD and is guaranteed to cause problems on the Z97. I may try W11 "Lite" when I tear down the Z97 for cleaning. SSD's are becoming more affordable these days. I don't much about them but I guess I need to do my research on them for a future upgrade.

Boot will always be slow on a HDD, painfully so. Like others said, get an SSD, and leave the RAM alone. You'll thank yourself.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Boot will always be slow on a HDD

Keep in mind, SSHD's are faster than HDD's. The SSD side improves performance dramatically. That performance is fine for system that isn't their primary system.

 

[Paganstomp]

How many webpages do you plan on opening at once using Chrome? That may dictate the amount you need.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

How many webpages do you plan on opening at once using Chrome?

Yes

 

[Flow]

I've upgraded a z390 board a year ago from 16 to 32GB. This was with a 9900k. Besides the occasional game pushing 15GB ram usage, it didn't bring much improvement to the table. It's nice to look at on your screen, but for gaming you won't notice a difference. Ssd's are a different matter though, even sata3 ones will show much faster loading of games compared to hdd's.

 

[Veseleil]

4x8GB DDR3 kits are cheap enough, and if you can find one with a good XMP speeds, why not? They're built to last, so if they work, getting them used even after decade of exploatation is not really a problem, they'll just continue to work.
The hyper x fury 2400MHz 32GB kit I've got half a decade ago proved to be a good deal. Great heatsinks, XMP set and forget. Even though I've never made it fully utilized on my x87 platform (meant to become an Ark server, but was never done), they were kinda minimum on an x79.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Well I've noticed my old rig (Z97) is slow in Windows 10 loading icons and booting up compared to my new Z390 rig which has 32GB (16x2) and is a lot snappier than than the Z97 rig. It could be that I need a fresh Windows 10 install or that the old Haswell rig has reached its limitations as configured.

Adding more RAM will probably not resolve this problem, a better SSD could help, but ultimately, the i7-4790K is a very old processor now. Low IPC, low memory performance, itty bitty cache size compared to modern chips - its performance is accordingly weak.

The best course of action for you is to purchase an NVMe SSD - you're fortunate your motherboard is one of the earliest which has an M.2 slot - and stick to a lean configuration. Don't bother with Windows 11, just stick to 10 for now, and with as little bloat as possible. That system will never be super snappy when put next to a Z390 machine. The gap in performance is just too big - and even the Z390 has seen far, far better days, it's also an older CPU architecture now and some of the cracks are starting to show.