How Much RAM Best for Gaming

8GB is more than enough, TBH 4GB would be fine on most games 32GB is pointless and 16GB is probably only good when doing graphic design/rendering
 
For the next few years imo 8GB of fast RAM > 16GB slower stuff, but the difference in actual performance is in the single digit percent. By the time 8GB is about the minimum acceptable DDR4 will be upon us anyway :p
 
It wouldn't slow games down at all, it just means you woldn't be using all of your RAM to its full potential, it's not a bad thing at all, just means you got spare ram if you need it
 
Makes me feel old :( i remember having the same debates about 8 meg and 16 meg of ram :( terrifying to think i'm using 4000 times more memory in my rig today than when i started pc gaming :( my first pc was 4 meg which i spent hundreds of pounds upgrading to 8meg.
 
well considering that most game are writen in 32 bit code, regardless of which os you have, which means they can only address 3.5gb of ram max.
 
nalla said:
well considering that most game are writen in 32 bit code, regardless of which os you have, which means they can only address 3.5gb of ram max.
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here is a short list of native 64bit games stretching back to FarCry1

BF3 uses up to 6GB of RAM on it's own on my PC

anyone building a PC now with less than 8GB of RAM is on a road to dissapointment, in fact I even saw a decent boost from putting an extra 4GB in my Q6600 PC before I upgraded completely, RAM is so cheap, why skimp on putting 4GB instead of 8GB now?
 
At the moment I would say 8GB is the sweet spot (2x4GB). Also, with overclocking, won't filling the RAM slots put extra strain on the NB and possibly need increased voltage and possibly limit the overclock? (seem to remember that being the case with the Core 2 Duo/Quads)
 
schumi84 said:
At the moment I would say 8GB is the sweet spot (2x4GB). Also, with overclocking, won't filling the RAM slots put extra strain on the NB and possibly need increased voltage and possibly limit the overclock? (seem to remember that being the case with the Core 2 Duo/Quads)
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it depends on the board / CPU, but that can be the case, yes

a board well specced for OC'ing it will be less of an issue

on mine, the motherboard's vdroop is more of an issue and I have to up the voltage to a point that my heatsink can't keep up - removing 2 sticks of RAM doesn't alleviate that issue
 
well i just tried bf3 memory usage and it used 1.9gb of memory, on caspian border with 64 players, settings on ultra at 2560 x 1600, are you using eyefinity by any chance because i doubt that a usage of 6gb is possible otherwise, unless you are reading your entire systems memory usage, not just bf3

oh and to answer the ops question, no 16gb shouldnt slow down gaming.
 
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mine uses nearly that much VRAM, let alone system RAM

I will double check system/BF3 main RAM usage later, but even if I was reading total system RAM, with nothing else running that would still peg BF3 usage over 4GB
 
The problem at the minute is almost all games (I could be wrong!) are written as 32bit processes

This means that the maximum RAM they can use is 2GB - my BF3 gets to this amount very quickly.

Wonder if games will start to become native x64 coded to take advantage of extra RAM?

Of course you have to take into account all the background windows stuff is using as well

I upgraded to 12GB because it only cost £48, is it better than when I had 6GB? Debatable, but makes me feel all warm inside
 
schumi84 said:
At the moment I would say 8GB is the sweet spot (2x4GB). Also, with overclocking, won't filling the RAM slots put extra strain on the NB and possibly need increased voltage and possibly limit the overclock? (seem to remember that being the case with the Core 2 Duo/Quads)
Click to expand...

I've not noticed any real difference between filling my board with 2x4GB -> 4x4GB, I'm getting the same overclocks either way on a Z68. Bear in mind I've not going mad with the 2600K, it's running it at 4.6Ghz.
 
Hefner said:
The problem at the minute is almost all games (I could be wrong!) are written as 32bit processes

This means that the maximum RAM they can use is 2GB - my BF3 gets to this amount very quickly.

Wonder if games will start to become native x64 coded to take advantage of extra RAM?

Of course you have to take into account all the background windows stuff is using as well

I upgraded to 12GB because it only cost £48, is it better than when I had 6GB? Debatable, but makes me feel all warm inside
Click to expand...

Games as far back as farcry 1 had native 64bit support...
google 64bit pc games and theres various list available of 64bit pc games
 
Unsure if it was a placebo or not but whilst ive been rrying to troubleshoot my problems i tried 1 stick of 4gb ram and noticed the difference when playing bf3.
As others have said 8gb is the sweetspot and pretty cheap!
 
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