8gb or 16gb question

[Lathais]

need to figure out how to tag Lathais so he can get in here with his RAM usage link.

Just p ut the @ symbol before someone's name and it tags them automagically, like this, @Kagthul.

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This is Lathais' link anyway. The reason they're not seeing big FPS drops is because they're paging on a moderately fast SSD. They could completely remove the RAM from the system and achieve similar results

That may be part of it, but not all of it. A major part of it is that games and programs will load tons of shit in to RAM that it doesn't really need because it thinks it might need it. In a system with less RAM, it doesn't pre-load as much and just loads what it needs on demand getting rid of old assets faster. The thing is, the overhead involved in dumping the stuff it no longer needs and loading the stuff it does need now is so little that doing that a lot more often doesn't have an impact on performance. RAM did used to make a huge difference years ago. You could take a system from 1-2GB RAM, increase it to 4GB and see a huge difference. *GB is really enough. I do still recommend 16GB if you are building new, but more than that is retarded and on a budget build with RAM prices being up, 8GB is still more than ok.

[Laqweeta]

Well I was looking to buy a new computer, not just upgrade what I have since its so old, so I didnt wanna post my current specs.

Im planning on buying a prebuilt CyberPowerPC in the $600-$800 range. I know I could build my own, but I dont want to.

I was looking at this one: https://www.walmart.com/ip/CYBERPOWE...luded/55764659

It seems like a good deal to me, but Im not sure if its a big difference over a cheaper option like this one: https://www.walmart.com/ip/CyberPowe...luded/51578207

AMD Ryzen 5 1400 Processor good luck

[lockedout]

need to figure out how to tag Lathais so he can get in here with his RAM usage link.

with RAM prices currently through the roof, 8 GB is fine.

Most games work well even with 4GB of RAM, even with lots of background stuff going on.

And without knowing what your CPU and GPU are, we cant even begin to speculate.

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Just for shiggles i fired up every Blizzard game i own (HotS, Hearthstone, WoW, SC2)...

yep. using a whopping 9GB of RAM (out of 16).

Two WoW accounts is about 4.2GB of RAM.

Ill screenshot it later, just for posterity.

Games do not use as much RAM as you think they do; or, more precisely, if lots of RAM is available, theyll happily load stuff into it, but there is almost no performance loss of any kind with less RAM - most of the time, all that extra info sits there unused.

Two instances of WoW should be fine on 8GB of RAM. If you're having stuttering issues, it might be an issue with the power of the rest of your rig.

Don't forget your OS usage.

[S7orm]

That may be part of it, but not all of it. A major part of it is that games and programs will load tons of shit in to RAM that it doesn't really need because it thinks it might need it. In a system with less RAM, it doesn't pre-load as much and just loads what it needs on demand getting rid of old assets faster. The thing is, the overhead involved in dumping the stuff it no longer needs and loading the stuff it does need now is so little that doing that a lot more often doesn't have an impact on performance. RAM did used to make a huge difference years ago. You could take a system from 1-2GB RAM, increase it to 4GB and see a huge difference. *GB is really enough. I do still recommend 16GB if you are building new, but more than that is retarded and on a budget build with RAM prices being up, 8GB is still more than ok.

That is of course the case of Google Chrome (and this is probably why they used it instead of something else to go above 8Gb) but games? This is WoW after doing my daily routine and parking it in background sniping and D3 after 3 rifts (less than 15mins):


Now, this is 6Gb from two games, OS excluded. So I opened Discord/Spotify and since I use a 7200 RPM HDD for paging (my main drive is a 6 years old OCZ Vertex 3, I'm not taking any chances) I could really feel a performance difference when dashing through the map (CPU chilling, GPU not even spinning). None of the two games even tried to clear some space.

So yes, you can live with 8Gb by closing stuff you're not using, but 16Gb is the go-to for someone looking to keep his machine for the next years. Remember OP's going to run a two monitor setup with 2 games running at all times, not your average "I'm tired of compiling my taxes, let's play a couple Hearthstone games"

[Deleted]

I would say that VRAM matters more for games now than in the past. But really 8GB system ram is fine. You can upgrade to 16 later when prices are less silly.

Second the Ryzen recommendations. Amazing value. Cheaper and rewarding for new builders.