Adding more RAM, would I benefit?

[joeyboy]

Quick question here, background on the PC first...

So this Pc is a bit of an old gal. i5-3570k (mild OC), 8GB DDR3 1600mhz ram, and I just fitted an RTX2060 (a gift), I also finally ditched my reliable VGA monitor (was VGA to HDMI cos yeah..) for a new 24" with something the kids call DisplayPort and 1080p..

So I'm not a heavy gamer, I never play multiplayer really at all, or if i do that's on RTS games which are clearly less graphically demanding than AAA FPS games.

That said I do want to play a few new AAA titles, hence the GPU upgrade. Mainly Metro Exodus, and to catch up on Evil Within 2/Resi 7, then probably whatever sci-fi/horror FPS games come out in the near future.

At the moment I've just started playing Evil Within 2 and in fairness despite it having a few poor port related isssues, it's frame rate doesn't seem to dip so far, staying at 70-100 generally. But I do notice even at Idle right now, my PC is using practically 50% of its memory according to task manager, and obviously more when playing. As said I've noticed no slow down on this game, but is it likely I will in other like Metro or at 1080p will this be enough?

Obviously my Ram is outdated, but 8GB of DDR 3 1600mhz is around £50, despite it showing its ages, would it be a worthwhile investment to help get another year or so out of it? If I do I assume it's best practice to get the exact same ram as I currently have? (2x4GB of Corsair vengeance, so get another 2x4GB)

cheers for any advice.

 

[Vexr]

DDR3 is much more flexible than DDR4, so you could even just get 1x4 GB for a total of 12 GB of RAM and you should still get dual channel. I sold my one stick of Corsair 1600 DDR3 4GB not so long ago and got about £12 for it IIRC, so could be a nice cheap option.

 

[Danny75]

To make the best choice for yourself, you need to know that it's the i5-3570K that will struggle in more instances than 8GB of RAM, when you start playing more multiplayer.

Now, if you have no plans to upgrade CPU (it would mean new DDR4 and mobo as well) for quite a while, then adding 8GB RAM is something you can do. As long as you bear the above in mind so you don't kick yourself thinking "I wasted money which I now know I need for this bigger upgrade".

If you go for RAM, you can go second-hand. Find a £25 2x4GB deal. That the sticks are the exact same is not that big a deal unless you expect to run them all at a certain voltage, frequency and timings. If you're flexible then they are flexible too. You find the best settings for the weaker set of RAM, and match your better set to that one by having the weaker set in the Primary Dual Channel. Just about all DDR3 RAM 1600MHz or faster, will run with mismatched sticks at 1600 CAS 11-11-11-28 2T, pretty much guaranteed. And probably with slightly better timings.

 

[joeyboy]

To make the best choice for yourself, you need to know that it's the i5-3570K that will struggle in more instances than 8GB of RAM, when you start playing more multiplayer.

Ah okay, so is this different for offline play? As in the RAM likely wouldn't help online slowdown I'd experience now, but if I do experience slow offline fps more RAM may alleviate it somewhat? I never play FPS titles online on my PC tbh, I use consoles for that. Online is stuff like Warhammer 40k related titles, or Supreme Commander FA etc. Which as of the moment the computer has no issues with anyway, the upgrade was more to play single player AAA titles as my gpu was 6 years old haha.

 

[Danny75]

As in the RAM likely wouldn't help online slowdown I'd experience now, but if I do experience slow offline fps more RAM may alleviate it somewhat?

I'll answer that this way:

More RAM won't give you more performance, it will only help when, with 8GB, certain games take virtual (not physical) memory over 75% and the page file starts being written to. Your physical memory usage might be at 50%, but virtual memory could be near 75% or pasing it. You can check this stuff in Task Manager or HWiNFO64.

Better CPU will improve performance in everything. Slightly in some titles, more in others. And it will also help avoid big frame drops, stutters, micro-stutter in those games (multiplayer fps mostly) where four cores isn't cutting it.

If you're not going to play multiplayer fps, then it doesn't really matter. I thought from reading your opening post that you hadn't but were going to. Just use HWiNFO64 to check virtual memory and page file usage, and check CPU usage, to see what's going on and you'll know who the culprit is if you ever experience slow downs (which so far you say you haven't).