1. #1
    Bloodsail Admiral Begrudge's Avatar
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    4 2g sticks or 2 4g sticks

    I was building a new rig and have 4 2g sticks of ripjaw gskill from my old build and was wondering if it would be worth it to buy 2 4g sticks to replace them with? I only play wow in case your wondering wat i do on my comp

  2. #2
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    Two 4 gig sticks are best, some motherboards can be a bit pissy with having all their DIMMs filled*, also allows you to further expand with another 2 in the future. However, as a stop gap if you're saving funds, you could use the 4 sticks and not take much of a performance hit.

    * mid-high end motherboards don't tend to suffer from this, neither to most budget ones, but some do.

  3. #3
    more then 4 gigs of ram wont make any difference for processes that aren't movie rendering or large graphical applications. (Or if you insist on having a million things open at once, although the CPU is 80% likely to be the bottleneck before the RAM is.)

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaykay View Post
    more then 4 gigs of ram wont make any difference for processes that aren't movie rendering or large graphical applications. (Or if you insist on having a million things open at once, although the CPU is 80% likely to be the bottleneck before the RAM is.)
    Most new games are now starting to recommend 8 GB of RAM, while 4 GB is the minimum. With the way requirements constantly increase and how WoW is already a poorly optimized game...I can imagine the extra memory being useful in the long run.
    Last edited by Alandalus; 2013-12-20 at 08:59 PM.

  5. #5
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    depends on the cpu and ram speed, 4 sticks put more load on the IMC which will make it more likely for it to be unstable and thus requiring more voltage when overclocked. this used to be a point of concern with Intel's nehalem/lynnfield/Sandy Bridge chips because their IMC only ran 1066/1333mhz stock and most common DDR3 ram speeds are 1600mhz. Intel Ivy Bridge/Haswell both run 1600mhz stock, so using 4 sticks of 2gb 1600mhz ram won't be an issue. it most likely won't be an issue regardless though.
    Last edited by mmoc1fd5dd6e8c; 2013-12-20 at 09:01 PM.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaykay View Post
    more then 4 gigs of ram wont make any difference for processes that aren't movie rendering or large graphical applications. (Or if you insist on having a million things open at once, although the CPU is 80% likely to be the bottleneck before the RAM is.)
    This is certainly untrue in todays' numbers. I recently upgraded to 16 gb ram and the performace boost was immense. That said, I rarely use more than 8 gbs, but in spikes, it does get into the 12 gb ballpark. I would say quite the opposite, ram is 80% more likely to be the bottleneck before CPU ever is, unless it's a very old one.

  7. #7
    Bloodsail Admiral Begrudge's Avatar
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    its on a asus m5a97 r2.0 and a fx-6300 6 core stock

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Begrudge View Post
    its on a asus m5a97 r2.0 and a fx-6300 6 core stock
    The performance difference will be negligible at best, I personally wouldn't bother upgrading to 2x 4GB, that board should be fine without any modifying.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Begrudge View Post
    its on a asus m5a97 r2.0 and a fx-6300 6 core stock
    4x2gb will work fine

  10. #10
    Bloodsail Admiral Begrudge's Avatar
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    many thankseseseses

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaykay View Post
    more then 4 gigs of ram wont make any difference for processes that aren't movie rendering or large graphical applications. (Or if you insist on having a million things open at once, although the CPU is 80% likely to be the bottleneck before the RAM is.)
    I got more RAM last year because I was sitting at 4 GB, and playing music with WoW running and about 6 browser tabs open was pushing the limits of my 4 GB. Just sitting here on the browser, the OS and background processes with my browser are around 2.5 GB, and WoW can sit around 1 GB as well. If you then like to have Steam open, along with a chat client, you could easily be scraping 4 GB with typical use. With some newer games, the RAM consumption can be even greater, so I'd say that 8 GB is where you want to be to avoid being concerned with RAM consumption. It might not be typical, but many will probably have to think about RAM consumption during some gaming environments with only 4 GB present.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Cracked View Post
    This is certainly untrue in todays' numbers. I recently upgraded to 16 gb ram and the performace boost was immense. That said, I rarely use more than 8 gbs, but in spikes, it does get into the 12 gb ballpark. I would say quite the opposite, ram is 80% more likely to be the bottleneck before CPU ever is, unless it's a very old one.
    I have to agree with this. My cpu is rarely ever past 25% useage(usually at 5%) and I am usually at 50% ram useage or higher (i have 16 gigs).

  13. #13
    Stood in the Fire Vouksh89's Avatar
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    Considering I have 5gb of RAM, and I'm constantly having trouble managing how many programs are open, I'd have to say 8gb+ is the only way to go. My poor hard drive is constantly being thrashed in newer games. WoW is generally OK, but BF4, skyrim, AC4, etc, all max out my RAM AND my Swap.

    Hell, just idling with 4 browser tabs, steam, and the battle.net client running, I'm sitting at 39% ram usage and 37% swap usage.

    Ugh, I can't wait to upgrade the rest of my computer...

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaykay View Post
    more then 4 gigs of ram wont make any difference for processes that aren't movie rendering or large graphical applications. (Or if you insist on having a million things open at once, although the CPU is 80% likely to be the bottleneck before the RAM is.)
    Call of duty: Ghosts REQUIRED 6gb at release, it used less than 3, but if you tried starting it with less you would just get an error.

    Also, i often see my computer pass 8gb used while playing.
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    Just because Mannoroth and Archimonde are involved doesn't mean it's Legion. They could just be on vacation, demolishing Draenor to build their new summer home.
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  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Vouksh89 View Post
    Considering I have 5gb of RAM, and I'm constantly having trouble managing how many programs are open, I'd have to say 8gb+ is the only way to go. My poor hard drive is constantly being thrashed in newer games. WoW is generally OK, but BF4, skyrim, AC4, etc, all max out my RAM AND my Swap.

    Hell, just idling with 4 browser tabs, steam, and the battle.net client running, I'm sitting at 39% ram usage and 37% swap usage.

    Ugh, I can't wait to upgrade the rest of my computer...
    Is this a typo, or do you actually have 5 GB of RAM? I'm confused as to how you would manage that.

  16. #16
    Stood in the Fire Vouksh89's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lilfrier View Post
    Is this a typo, or do you actually have 5 GB of RAM? I'm confused as to how you would manage that.
    No typo. I have 2 2gb sticks, and a 1GB. It's DDR2, as well. Still using an old Core 2 Quad cpu. It's not fast, but it's rock solid.

  17. #17
    I legitimately didn't know you could do that, haha.

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