6gb DDR3 or 12gb DDR3, which is better?

Another vote for 6gb.

It's all you need now, and by the time it's worth doubling up to 12 or higher it will be about half the price for the extra sticks.
 
danceMB said:
I dont think that my rig will become obsolete when the time comes for more ram, as im sure in the next 12 months or so, we will start to see games that can utilise more than 6gb, at the moment none of the games take this into account, due to the long production time to make a big title, but it wouldnt surprise me if people start adding more within the next 2 years at the most, due to the triple-channel its either 6gb or 12gb, which is a huge jump in the numbers
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Games using more than 6gb in the next 12 months? :confused: I think not.
 
ricky1981 said:
The only reason to need 6GB (or 4GB for 99% of people) is if you are running things like Vmware workstation. For gaming you'd get a much better return by buying another graphics card/better processor/SSD or even a nicer monitor.
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Actually, there are several current games out right now that, when used with a 64bit OS, will go well over 3GB of memory usage. 6GB is the sweet spot for sure for the modern gamer.
 
6gb will be more than enough for now.

If you get 3 x 2gb then you will have space in the future to fill up the other slots if you feel the need for 12gb.
 
ricky1981 said:
The only reason to need 6GB (or 4GB for 99% of people) is if you are running things like Vmware workstation. For gaming you'd get a much better return by buying another graphics card/better processor/SSD or even a nicer monitor.
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You need at least 6gb for the time being, especially to run Vista at full speed at the same time as playing the latest games, in particular Sims 3 with a ton of custom content ;)

I will be buying a brand new machine come end of may, and will upgrade it to include the latest graphics GTX295, Intel i7 and already have an LG 22" screen bought end of last year, thats why I asked the question about the amount of memory so that the machine will arrive fully assembled without having to buy additional equipment.

The questions been answered, 12gb is too much for now, but 6gb works very nicely, with no improvement once you go over the 6gb "barrier"
 
I recently built my new system and went for the 12Gb, but as a photographer using the 64-bit version of Photoshop, the more RAM the better. I've also noticed a huge reduction in time when rendering out high definition blu-ray videos, but this might be more down to the nature of the i7 cpu than RAM.
 
Carol Steele said:
I recently built my new system and went for the 12Gb, but as a photographer using the 64-bit version of Photoshop, the more RAM the better.
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A good example of someone needing and using 12GB. Honestly, a vast majority of computer users don't even know how to make a machine us up a full 6GB, much less 12GB.

Carol Steele said:
I've also noticed a huge reduction in time when rendering out high definition blu-ray videos, but this might be more down to the nature of the i7 cpu than RAM.
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Interesting, what is the source drive for this? Is it already on your HD or coming from the optical drive?
 
For someone using Photoshop I can imagine that the full 12gb might actually help, but also having the i7 helps a lot as well as its real fast at rendering, but with the cheap cost of RAM, it doesnt hit the wallet too hard when coming to occupy the full 6 slots
 
My machine would only really be used for music and extreme gaming, and several people have said that those main objectives for computer use wouldnt require me to have 12gb, only the 6gb for now and the immediate future
 
braveheart said:
use 6GB to be safe --- the memory stick chipset has small fuse inside that sometime blow out so i would agree others with 6GB tha 12GB
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I don't know if that's true, but that would be completely useless. The idea of a fuse is to stop overloading, so if it blows, you can replace the fuse instead of a broken component. If you have a fuse that is too small to replace, it makes it completely redundant as you have to replace a different component instead. Heck, if the fuse blows and protects your £100 RAM, but renders your £200 motherboard useless, it's actually counter-productive than if it wasn't there in the first place.

Also, they wouldn't supply 6 DIMM slots if it wasn't possible to use them. I can understand them having to slow down due to load, but including them when they can't be used would be stupid. PCI-E slots are acceptable, as they take more than just one product. If the ONLY thing that could go in a PCI-E slot was a GPU, and the mobo couldn't handle more than one PCI-E slot in use, what would be the point in supplying more than one?

So I REALLY doubt there is a tiny fuse that blows if you try to use 12GB of RAM. Unless it was replaceable, in which case, it would be a common recommended solution to "help 12GB of RAM doesn't work!" threads, which it isn't.
 
There is no fuse on memory. And, in this case, IF there was a fuse related to the loading of 3 modules vs 6 modules, the fuse would either be on the MOBO or the memory controller as that is the 2 components that would differentiate the load. There is no fuse in a system like what is mentioned here.
 
I think the term about the fuse blowing is more about "scare mongering" than anything else tbh, its just that people dont need anymore than 6gb for the time being.

Who knows, once Windows 7 gets released and more optimised, we might find more of a use for 12gb then, until then dont worry :)
 
Imagine a game like Spore 2 (5 years delayed) utilising that much ram with a game like that it would take a lifetime to complete it ;)
 
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