4GB "fast RAM" or 8GB Slower RAM?

ssmacc

ssmacc

ssmacc

Soldato
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Hello,

I’ve built the kids a PC for homework and the odd game (nothing stressful, Serious Sam HD, terraria etc), I built it a while ago with the priority been low power consumption, it’s a AMD 880G chipset and 235e CPU, its currently only got 2GB of RAM, as RAM is so cheap at the moment I’m thinking of upgrading, I’ve had a quick look and am willing to spend ~£35. I can get 4GB of “fast RAM” or 8GB of slower RAM, now you can probably tell by my description that I’m no expert on RAM…

Question is should I go for 4GB or 8GB, I know both are potentially over kill (given the rest of the spec.) but at ~£35 I’m willing to go mad!

Any recommendations appreciated.

Thanks

edit, it's a 785g Chipset not 880g (that's my HTPC)
 
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8gb of slower ram if stuck between a choice of 4gb of "fast" ram and 8gb of "slow" ram.

However the above sounds appropriate!
 
tbh you'll be hard pressed to notice a difference in speed between fast and slow ram unless your trying to push for epic overclocks on certain systems


but in fairness i'd imagine 4 gig will be fine, 8gig overkill
 
reygjabla said:
Well, it depends if your mobo and CPU can handle 8 gigs and 1600MHz DDR 3.
Click to expand...

It's a GA-MA785GMT-UD2H (not sure on the rev. how do I check this?), according the website even v1.1 supports 16GB of 1800, so i should be OK with the 8GB (arriving tomorrow)

I know it’s over kill, but if prices go up (RAM is volatile after all) I can use this in my next build (i5 in the not too distant future), and if it doesn’t it’s only ~£35…
Cheers
I went for the low profile RAM suggested earlier in the thread
 
The revision should be marked on the edge of the board, by the pci slot. (Just below top left fixing point)
 
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If you exclude the extreme memory overclocking attempts performed by some enthusiasts truth be told you will notice next to no difference in true FPS in games in equally configured systems but with different memory timings.

Save for a few games right now, more memory won't also mean smoother gameplay/loading textures/levels etc.

The same is true for professional software such as Photoshop.

8GB will however mean smoother multi-tasking if you have the habbit of opening various apps all at once that later sit on your taskbar.

Overall, if given a choice, choose more memory, not better timings. If you can get both then why not, but don't lose sleep over it.
 
I was quite surprised to see my system was using 7GB of RAM the other day when I was running a few programs, so I would agree that 8GB would be the best way forward as you are running 64 bit.
 
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