RAM upgrade for Ryzen 5700X

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

strumpusplunket

Soldato
Joined
5 Feb 2009
Posts
4,022
I was thinking I would upgrade my aging AM4 rig sometime next year, probably sometime in spring. However, the bananas RAM price surge has kind of pushed that way out of feeling like a sensible course of action. DDR5 prices are just prohibitive at the moment, and from what I hear we're looking at that being the case at lest into 2027.

So, I think I will limp along with this system for another 12-18 months. With that in mind, I started to think that my current 16GB RAM might start becoming a more noticable bottleneck.

I was looking at grabbing 32GB of DDR4 whilst it's still around and the price hike hasn't filtered down to the DDR4 kits quite so badly.

I've had a look around, and can find some 2x16GB 3200MHz kits for around £140-160ish, which doesn't feel too bad to keep my system going for another year or so.

But... all of these kits seem a fair bit worse in terms of latency than my current RAM. I have 2x8GB sticks of 3200MHz DDR4 at 14-14-14-31. The 32GB kits I see now are in the region 16-18-18-38.

My question is - am I going to see enough improvement in games for this to actually be worthwhile? Or will the worse latency cancel out any benefits of having more RAM capacity?
 
mickyflinn said:
It's more about if your running out of memory having 16gb, have you monitored usage?

Latency you can loose a couple of FPS in game at the same MHz but I'd rather more ram than not enough which causes drops and stutters in game.
Click to expand...
I've not monitored in games, tbh, but I have noticed system RAM use being surprisingly high in general use (79% right now, for instance, with Chrome and a few Word and pdf docs open).

If the FPS loss with the latency difference is really that neglible I migth just bite the bullet and grab the upgrade.
 
Last edited:
strumpusplunket said:
I've not monitored in games, tbh, but I have noticed system RAM use being surprisingly high in general use (79% right now, for instance, with Chrome and a few Word and pdf docs open).

If the FPS loss with the latency difference is really that neglible I migth just bite the bullet and grab the upgrade.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately you've picked the worst time with memory prices but should recoup some with selling you old stuff.
 
Last edited:
strumpusplunket said:
Or will the worse latency cancel out any benefits of having more RAM capacity?
Click to expand...
The latency difference between those you specified shouldn't be noticeable outside of memory benchmarks.

strumpusplunket said:
My question is - am I going to see enough improvement in games for this to actually be worthwhile?
Click to expand...
Without monitoring your usage or knowing which games you're playing that's hard to answer.

If you haven't noticed anything in the games you play (e.g. no stuttering, long loads/unloads, crashing after long gameplay periods) then I should imagine the answer is no, it won't be worthwhile.

That's most likely to be the case with gamers that only play a few games and either regularly restart their PC or always close stuff down like browsers/tabs when gaming.

That said, this suggests your PC is going to be regularly dipping into the page file and if you're leaving these open when gaming, I would think that's causing some slow downs, or at the very least, higher SSD wear due to excess page file usage.
strumpusplunket said:
I have noticed system RAM use being surprisingly high in general use (79% right now, for instance, with Chrome and a few Word and pdf docs open).
Click to expand...
 
mickyflinn said:
Unfortunately you've picked the worst time with memory prices but should recoup some with selling you old stuff.
Click to expand...
Yup. I feel like it's only going to get worse for a wihle yet still, though, so want to grab something before it gets worse.

Tetras said:
The latency difference between those you specified shouldn't be noticeable outside of memory benchmarks.


Without monitoring your usage or knowing which games you're playing that's hard to answer.

If you haven't noticed anything in the games you play (e.g. no stuttering, long loads/unloads, crashing after long gameplay periods) then I should imagine the answer is no, it won't be worthwhile.

That's most likely to be the case with gamers that only play a few games and either regularly restart their PC or always close stuff down like browsers/tabs when gaming.

That said, this suggests your PC is going to be regularly dipping into the page file and if you're leaving these open when gaming, I would think that's causing some slow downs, or at the very least, higher SSD wear due to excess page file usage.
Click to expand...
I have noticed periodic stuttering in some games, and started to suspect RAM shortage might be an issue. And I got some crashes until I cranked my page file size up beyond what I usually would and beyond the system default setting.

I'll have a look at RAM usage whilst in a game later tonight.
 
strumpusplunket said:
I have noticed periodic stuttering in some games, and started to suspect RAM shortage might be an issue. And I got some crashes until I cranked my page file size up beyond what I usually would and beyond the system default setting.

I'll have a look at RAM usage whilst in a game later tonight.
Click to expand...
If that's what is happening there (that your PC is regularly running low/running out), even 32GB of standard JEDEC memory (CL22) is likely to offer you a much better gaming experience than your low latency 16GB.
 
So, quick upgrade - dropped 32GB of the CL16 3200 RAM into my PC last night and spent a coupe of hours messing about in KCD2.

As usual, I had a few Chrome tabs open, as I never bothered shutting them down, but I didn't get any of the intermittent stuttering I was getting previously.

Don't think I noticed a general increase in FPS, but I was getting annoyed by games just hitching for 3-4 seconds every five minutes or so. At frist, I thought it was graphics loading as I traversed game worlds, but hopefully the extra RAM headroom has sorted it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom