DDR4 16 VS 32 GB

inflames

inflames

inflames

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I recent upgraded my AM4 gaming PC, my system upgrade path

Asrock B450 fatality ITX
2 X 8GB Vulcan ram.
Ryzen 5 2600 to ryzen 5 5600 could not justify the extra cost to got to 7.
Rx590 to a RX9060xt 16GB.
Recent edition was a 1440p monitor.

All the old parts so far have gone into a system for my kids and when I built that one machine was at the point when ram prices started going up. I had planned to buy 32GB for my mine and use the 16GB in the kids machine. But I held off buying 32gb for my own system as the prices were going up. I decided to buy them 16 and then I would buy 32 and sell my current 16 later.

Is it really worth the wait for the ram to come down in price to buy 32 or should I just stick with 16.
 
Can you clarify exactly what system you're thinking of buying 32GB for? I got pretty confused reading your write-up.

Generally: 16GB is enough for most games, especially if the other apps open when gaming are minimal (or none), but 32GB is a lot more comfortable and will help with one or two games that are choppier/more stuttery with 16GB. It can make a difference with load/unload times if the PC is dipping into the pagefile too.

If you can still find a reasonably priced used kit that they haven't noticed memory has 2x/3x/4x, I'd grab it before they realise.
 
inflames said:
Is it really worth the wait for the ram to come down in price
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No one knows when or if that will happen, crazy market and production of DDR4 dropping as they switch lines to make more DDR5...


inflames said:
buy 32 or should I just stick with 16
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Unless theres a game that you want to play that won't run with 16GB stick with what you have got but keep an eye out for any secondhand bargains that popup.


At least you have a fairly recent PC and don't really need to upgrade until AMD release its next platform which might use DDR6; I've wanted to build a new system to replace the potato I'm using for sometime GPU prices went insane, I was made redundant (twice from the same job) which made me reluctant to drop ££££££ on a new toy now they are still stupid money but a bit less so but the RAM has gone bonkers.

So I'm stuck with gaming via Geforce Now which is ok but for my ****** 4G Vodafone dongle which has gotten slower since the Vodafone / Three merger which leaves me in a bit of a pickle.
 
Tetras said:
Can you clarify exactly what system you're thinking of buying 32GB for? I got pretty confused reading your write-up.

Generally: 16GB is enough for most games, especially if the other apps open when gaming are minimal (or none), but 32GB is a lot more comfortable and will help with one or two games that are choppier/more stuttery with 16GB. It can make a difference with load/unload times if the PC is dipping into the pagefile too.

If you can still find a reasonably priced used kit that they haven't noticed memory has 2x/3x/4x, I'd grab it before they realise.
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My apologies, being dyslexic sometimes I struggle to get my point across clearly. So the system I upgraded to and would like to upgrade my ram to 32 is:

Asrock B450 fatality ITX
2 X 8GB Vulcan ram.
Ryzen 5 5600
RX9060xt 16GB.
1440p monitor.
 
NetMan said:
No one knows when or if that will happen, crazy market and production of DDR4 dropping as they switch lines to make more DDR5...



Unless theres a game that you want to play that won't run with 16GB stick with what you have got but keep an eye out for any secondhand bargains that popup.


At least you have a fairly recent PC and don't really need to upgrade until AMD release its next platform which might use DDR6; I've wanted to build a new system to replace the potato I'm using for sometime GPU prices went insane, I was made redundant (twice from the same job) which made me reluctant to drop ££££££ on a new toy now they are still stupid money but a bit less so but the RAM has gone bonkers.

So I'm stuck with gaming via Geforce Now which is ok but for my ****** 4G Vodafone dongle which has gotten slower since the Vodafone / Three merger which leaves me in a bit of a pickle.
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First sorry to hear about your redundancy, I know how that feels I got made redundant earlier this year. I was lucky enough to find a new job quickly what allowed me to use some of redundancy money to do my upgrade.

The prices of Ram are just crazy at the moment and I don’t expect them to come down anytime soon. DDR4 I am sure I will have to buy 2nd hand prices and even 2 hand prices are crazy.
 
inflames said:
Asrock B450 fatality ITX
2 X 8GB Vulcan ram.
Ryzen 5 5600
RX9060xt 16GB.
1440p monitor.
Click to expand...
That's capable of playing newer games, so I'd get the extra if you can. It does depend on usage and the games, if it is literally just a "turn on, game, turn off" kind of PC then it is less important. Same goes for mainly playing older or indie games.
 
inflames said:
My apologies, being dyslexic sometimes I struggle to get my point across clearly. So the system I upgraded to and would like to upgrade my ram to 32 is:

Asrock B450 fatality ITX
2 X 8GB Vulcan ram.
Ryzen 5 5600
RX9060xt 16GB.
1440p monitor.
Click to expand...
Unless you are running out of RAM or have the opportunity to buy a cheap 32gig kit, don’t worry too much.

You could overclock your current system if you wanted to get a bit more performance out of it (reduce RAM timings, small CPU negative voltage offset+PBO, manual increase in GPU memory and cpu frequency)
 
I could manage on 16GB DDR4 as I was going to side grade to a AM5 setup ready for Zen 6 but chose to keep my 13600K for a while longer and upgraded to 32GB DDR4. The upgrade was more QOL for me as I now dont have to end process on Firefox as I had loads of tabs open and it was taking 8-10GB in RAM.

Loading times are better as when I upgraded I was partway through a playthrough of Final Fantasy 16 and it cut the loading times down massively. I did also play Jedi Survivor with 32GB and it ate RAM though this is the one game that some hardware reviewers shown that it benefits a system with DDR5.

As others have said unless you an get it cheep and your not getting massive performance problems due to running out of RAM, keep what you have.
 
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inflames said:
I recent upgraded my AM4 gaming PC, my system upgrade path

Asrock B450 fatality ITX
2 X 8GB Vulcan ram.
Ryzen 5 2600 to ryzen 5 5600 could not justify the extra cost to got to 7.
Rx590 to a RX9060xt 16GB.
Recent edition was a 1440p monitor.

All the old parts so far have gone into a system for my kids and when I built that one machine was at the point when ram prices started going up. I had planned to buy 32GB for my mine and use the 16GB in the kids machine. But I held off buying 32gb for my own system as the prices were going up. I decided to buy them 16 and then I would buy 32 and sell my current 16 later.

Is it really worth the wait for the ram to come down in price to buy 32 or should I just stick with 16.
Click to expand...
So my build is same GPU/1440p with except for having a 5700x3d.
Just grabbed a used 16gb to have 32gb.

My reasoning for extra is ddr4 will get rare as time goes on, and in my personal experience. I don't see things getting cheaper for next few years.

Your current build will take you through to zen6.
 
inflames said:
I recent upgraded my AM4 gaming PC, my system upgrade path

Asrock B450 fatality ITX
2 X 8GB Vulcan ram.
Ryzen 5 2600 to ryzen 5 5600 could not justify the extra cost to got to 7.
Rx590 to a RX9060xt 16GB.
Recent edition was a 1440p monitor.

All the old parts so far have gone into a system for my kids and when I built that one machine was at the point when ram prices started going up. I had planned to buy 32GB for my mine and use the 16GB in the kids machine. But I held off buying 32gb for my own system as the prices were going up. I decided to buy them 16 and then I would buy 32 and sell my current 16 later.

Is it really worth the wait for the ram to come down in price to buy 32 or should I just stick with 16.
Click to expand...
If you want some sort of stop gap whilst the world goes crazy, go buy a couple 16gig Intel Optane drives to use as cache, they are like £10.

It won’t be RAM fast but it’ll cache any data that overflows from your current RAM capacity and help a little I guess.

*looks like Intel Optane is back on the menu, boys*
 
The only games where I really noticed the advantage of having 32GB were Microsoft Flight Simulator and Star Citizen. For everything else, Iv'e found it's not being used.
 
When I was using DDR4 I had 16GB for years. But, when Cities Skylines was released and assets, not mods, became established that was my primary reason to go to 32GB. It remained the only game that I played that would utilise most of that 32GB.

I now have 32GB of DDR5, cheap to have at the time.
I see RAM allocation, but I'm also aware of memory being allocated but that is not always the same as being used.
IIRC GN covered that in a video some time back, trying to measure actual RAM usage against that of what was allocated, but could be used elsewhere if needed.
 
Vimes said:
When I was using DDR4 I had 16GB for years. But, when Cities Skylines was released and assets, not mods, became established that was my primary reason to go to 32GB. It remained the only game that I played that would utilise most of that 32GB.

I now have 32GB of DDR5, cheap to have at the time.
I see RAM allocation, but I'm also aware of memory being allocated but that is not always the same as being used.
IIRC GN covered that in a video some time back, trying to measure actual RAM usage against that of what was allocated, but could be used elsewhere if needed.
Click to expand...
City Skylines I play that a lot, hoping to get city skyline 2 in the Xmas steam sale.
 
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