Which would serve me best?

[Pierre3400]

Hey guys,

Im currently rebuilding my 2nd rig, and i have a choice of ram.

It has been running 2x 4Gb Kingston 1333Mhz ram clocked to 1400mhz. But i recently bought 2x 2Gb Kingston HyperX 1866Mhz.

For gaming rig, which of these sets of ram? and why?

 

[manu2b]

Well, if purely gaming, 4GB will be enough, and you might see a little gain going from 1400 to 1866 (maybe OCeable to 2000?).

Games rarely consume over 2GB.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I would still like to see 8GB in it even for gaming. I've seen my RAM usage hit 4-5GB in game plenty.

The difference from 1400 to 1866 would be slight, if even noticeable at all.

 

[manu2b]

^Agreed on the slight advantage, but 4/5GB on machine dedicated for gaming?
Never seen a title eating more than 2/2.5GB (talking about the game only, not the full system mem usage).

 

[ATMINSIDE]

^Agreed on the slight advantage, but 4/5GB on machine dedicated for gaming?
Never seen a title eating more than 2/2.5GB (talking about the game only, not the full system mem usage).

I'm talking about full system usage because everything still has to run with the game going. I see total usage hit 4/5GB plenty.

 

[manu2b]

^That's why I put the condition "if purely gaming".
Windows 7/8 eats around 1.1/1.2GB, it leaves 2.8 free GB...

Edit: actually, I believe the 1866 might net a couple of FPS in FPS/Racing, maybe a bit more in RTGs. But, sure, the 8GB will give more comfort if you feel like doing anything else than gaming with the computer. Try both, lol!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Alright, so say Windows is using 1.2, your game is using 2.5 and you open an internet browser. There went your last 300MB.

 

[manu2b]

^Agreed.

But it is not a "pure gaming" rig anymore then!

Edit: most games are 32bits coded (Frostbyte 2 engine being an exception), and so designed for an architecture with a max of 4GB. They can't use more than 2GB...
This article is from 2008, but still relevant, as games are still 32bits:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/07/21/3092070.aspx interesting part is when explaining 32bits effective memory design.