How much DDR3 RAM is needed for gaming?

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

Hello,

Say one builds a PC JUST for gaming. It's supposed to be for all the high-end games and also the new DX11 games. What is the heaviest game for RAM? And how much RAM does it suck up. Assume the OS will be windows 7. Wouldn't 3-4GB suffice? I see that the majority buys 6GB nowadays and some even 8 or 12. Is this all necessary? How much is really needed?

Regards

Nebulous · Feb 5, 2010

Really all depends. I had 8gb on my 775 using an x64 OS. With that much ram and x64 os, it was faaassst and snappy

Current setup I have only 6gb which is more than plenty for my needs right now.

The more ram you have in the setup, it's starts to affect the oc and stresses out the NB (775) or mem controller (i7).

Pretty much a preference or a need or both.

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

Nebulous said:
Really all depends. I had 8gb on my 775 using an x64 OS. With that much ram and x64 os, it was faaassst and snappy

Current setup I have only 6gb which is more than plenty for my needs right now.

The more ram you have in the setup, it's starts to affect the oc and stresses out the NB (775) or mem controller (i7).

Pretty much a preference or a need or both.

Thought RAM is only effective when used.. Like say you're using 4GB out of 8GB, thought that it wouldn't be a difference as aposed to 4GB out of 12GB.

Mr.Guvernment · Feb 5, 2010

i had 8G in my last rig and i think maybe twice i went over 4G and that was cause i was running VM's and had photoshop open.

4G is fine right now.

and going form 4G to 8G made no differnece in OS snappiness because the OS never used over 1.2G on boot with superfetch and all.

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

Mr.Guvernment said:
i had 8G in my last rig and i think maybe twice i went over 4G and that was cause i was running VM's and had photoshop open.

4G is fine right now.

and going form 4G to 8G made no differnece in OS snappiness because the OS never used over 1.2G on boot with superfetch and all.

Nice, I currently only have 2GB. I do want to play high end games though. Will that be a problem or should I upgrade?

Automata · Feb 5, 2010

baris_ said:
Nice, I currently only have 2GB. I do want to play high end games though. Will that be a problem or should I upgrade?

2gb is low for gaming. I'd suggest 4gb+. Basically, whatever you can afford.

ghost_recon88 · Feb 5, 2010

4GB would be fine, I'd rather take the money I saved from only getting 4GB and put it towards a SSD. That will help your load times and overall system speed a lot more than getting an additional 4GB of RAM would.

EarthDog · Feb 5, 2010

ghost_recon88 said:
4GB would be fine, I'd rather take the money I saved from only getting 4GB and put it towards a SSD. That will help your load times and overall system speed a lot more than getting an additional 4GB of RAM would.

+1

<-- love that smiley!

Root5098 · Feb 5, 2010

I would definetly recommend 4gb or more. (preferably 6gb as you can still get it in Tri-Chan that way)

Im on Windows 7, 3GB DDR3 Tri-Chan 1333MHz (Rest of specs in sig) and it uses 30% of my RAM at idle. Running Company of Heroes would get my RAM upto 99% or so..

However I do not lag in any games at highest settings (apart from RTS style such as Empire Total War/Company of Heroes etc) so I'm not too bothered

I'll be upgrading to this within 3 weeks: Corsair Dominator 3GB 3x2GB DDR3 1600MHz

Bobnova · Feb 5, 2010

If you're going to lga1366 get 6gb (3x2gb), if you're going to any other platform get 4gb (2x2gb).

Once you start buying 4gb dimms it gets hideously expensive, and typically if you fill all the ram slots (6x on lga1366, 4x on everything else) you lose some OC capabilities.

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

Thank you all for your replies. I see. I think I'll buy 1-2GB extra RAM. I just checked the prices and I can upgrade to 4GB under $60. But I will see if it is nessecary. I will have a pretty decent rig, but if I still find it laggy and such. I'll have to upgrade. 1GB at a time until it runs smoothly.

pik4chu · Feb 5, 2010

baris_ said:
Thank you all for your replies. I see. I think I'll buy 1-2GB extra RAM. I just checked the prices and I can upgrade to 4GB under $60. But I will see if it is nessecary. I will have a pretty decent rig, but if I still find it laggy and such. I'll have to upgrade. 1GB at a time until it runs smoothly.

TBH if you are still lagging in games with 4gigs of memory then it probably isn't your memory that is your new bottleneck. 4gig for dual channel boards and 6 gigs for tri channel boards is really all you need unless you are running VMs + other stuff and/or you are a heavy photoshop user (or similar high end graphics application).

Most of my rigs have 4 or 6 gigs with the exception of my primary which has 12 and thats only because of the VMs I run on it.

PeterGarcia30 · Feb 5, 2010

yup 4 or 6 sounds good also because i dont like having every ram slot filled up all that ram squished up together more heat etc etc i have 4 gb right now i had 6 but i took 2 sticks out because i really wasnt using it i like some breathing room btw my ram ..thats just me though

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

PeterGarcia30 said:
yup 4 or 6 sounds good also because i dont like having every ram slot filled up all that ram squished up together more heat etc etc i have 4 gb right now i had 6 but i took 2 sticks out because i really wasnt using it i like some breathing room btw my ram ..thats just me though

I currently have 4 RAM slots and 2 of them filled. They're right next to eachother. Do you reckon I should buy a 2GB one so they're not all filled?

Nebulous · Feb 5, 2010

You do know that with 3 ram sticks you will not run dual channel mode. You'll be better off either 2x2gb sticks or running the current 2x1gb sticks for dual channel.

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

Nebulous said:
You do know that with 3 ram sticks you will not run dual channel mode. You'll be better off either 2x2gb sticks or running the current 2x1gb sticks for dual channel.

Oh I did not know that.. What about 4x1GB? Is that still DDR2?

Nebulous · Feb 5, 2010

baris_ said:
Oh I did not know that.. What about 4x1GB? Is that still DDR2?

Yup that's fine. Don't mix brands tho. It's best to use the same brand with the same timings/voltages of ram.

Also remember you won't be able to have the same overclock with 4 ram sticks as 2 because you put more of a workload on the NB. You may have to raise the NB voltage which will result in higher NB temps. Be sure the NB has good cooling.

psionic98 · Feb 5, 2010

ddr2 has nothing to do with how many sticks you buy

Unless the mobo supports DDR3 its pointless to get as it wouldn't even run. Buying matching pairs of DDR2 will allow the mobo to run dual-channel, buying 3 sticks of matching DDR2 will run single channel, buying 4 sticks of matching ddr2 will run in dual channel.. pairs are better for non-AM3 or 1366 boards, as they work better with sets of 3s

redduc900 · Feb 5, 2010

You can run a dual channel (interleaved) mode configuration w/ 3 DIMMs as long as they're installed like this (the 512MB sticks in the pic. represent the 2 x 1GB sticks you currently have, and the 2GB stick you plan on purchasing would replace the 1GB stick in the pic.)...

Rules to Enable Dual Channel Mode
To achieve Dual Channel mode, the following conditions must be met:

- Matched DIMM configuration in each channel
- Same Density (128MB, 256MB, 512MB, etc.)
- Matched in both Channel A and Channel B memory channels
- Populate symmetrical memory slots (Slot 0 or Slot 1)

baris_ · Feb 5, 2010

redduc900 said:
You can run a dual channel (interleaved) mode configuration w/ 3 DIMMs as long as they're installed like this (the 512MB sticks in the pic. represent the 2 x 1GB sticks you currently have, and the 2GB stick you plan on purchasing would replace the 1GB stick in the pic.)...

Rules to Enable Dual Channel Mode
To achieve Dual Channel mode, the following conditions must be met:

- Matched DIMM configuration in each channel
- Same Density (128MB, 256MB, 512MB, etc.)
- Matched in both Channel A and Channel B memory channels
- Populate symmetrical memory slots (Slot 0 or Slot 1)

So if I understand it I can still run in DDR2 with that setup you just described?

Also: I don't have anything to cool the NB specifically.. Is that necessary? Isn't the antec 1200 airflow good enough?

My first approach would be to buy another 1GB stick of the same kind. That way I've got:

Channel A Slot 1: 1GB
Channel A Slot 2: 1GB
Channel B Slot 1: 1GB

Right? And this will run DDR2?

How much DDR3 RAM is needed for gaming?

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