What RAM provides the best performance for Gaming?

[Laurence Brenner]

I am currently working on figuring out what I should get for my future pc. Current planing says: GTX 1080 and an i5-6600k or i7-6700k, 144hz monitor(I already own that one). In total im aiming for a 1500€ budget but do not consider it as a fixed budget. So the question I have is what RAM is best for modern day gaming: DDR3 / DDR4, 8GB /16GB, what frequency and so on... So advice would you give me?

[Mira Yurizaki]

You should get 16 GB, but you can skirt by with 8GB if you don't do much else while you game. It doesn't matter what frequency you get as it barely affects performance.

[Guest]

Well if your going the Skylake route you'll have to get DDR4.

[jman116]

2 minutes ago, Laurence Brenner said:

I am currently working on figuring out what I should get for my future pc. Current planing says: GTX 1080 and an i5-6600k or i7-6700k, 144hz monitor(I already own that one). In total im aiming for a 1500€ budget but do not consider it as a fixed budget. So the question I have is what RAM is best for modern day gaming: DDR3 / DDR4, 8GB /16GB, what frequency and so on... So advice would you give me?

DDR4, as it's the latest and future proff. 8 Gig's more than enough, believe me.

[Laurence Brenner]

6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

You should get 16 GB, but you can skirt by with 8GB if you don't do much else while you game. It doesn't matter what frequency you get as it barely affects performance.

Do higher frequencys achieve anything at all in terms of performance? Why do they even exists then?

Edited December 14, 2016 by Laurence Brenner

[8-Bit Ninja]

3 minutes ago, jman116 said:

DDR4, as it's the latest and future proff. 8 Gig's more than enough, believe me.

not anymore, 16gbs is becoming the standard now 

[jman116]

Just now, 8-Bit Ninja said:

not anymore, 16gbs is becoming the standard now 

On what games? I run every game in my library perfectly.

EDIT: With his price point, yeah I'd get 16 Gigs for the hell of it.

[Praesi]

3 minutes ago, jman116 said:

DDR4, as it's the latest and future proff. 8 Gig's more than enough, believe me.

Not for Games like BF1.

[8-Bit Ninja]

1 minute ago, jman116 said:

On what games? I run every game in my library perfectly.

what res? remember of the op is looking at a 6700k + 1080, meaning their going 1440p or possibly 4k, in either of these use cases 8gb isn't enough 

[Praesi]

16GB Corsair Vengeance 3000mhz.

 

Good Price/Performance for Gaming.

[Laurence Brenner]

Well do 8gbs still work fine with multiple background applications like Chrome,TS3,Rainmeter?

[jman116]

1 minute ago, Praesi said:

Not for Games like BF1.

I have BF1 at Ultra + 8 Gigs. I do not agree with you.

[8-Bit Ninja]

1 minute ago, jman116 said:

I have BF1 at Ultra + 8 Gigs. I do not agree with you.

you're playing at 1600x900 so of course 8gb is enough

[Praesi]

1 minute ago, jman116 said:

I have BF1 at Ultra + 8 Gigs. I do not agree with you.

E8400 BF Ultra..yap. I believe that.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, jman116 said:

I have BF1 at Ultra + 8 Gigs. I do not agree with you.

resolution? settings? ram usage?

[jman116]

1 minute ago, 8-Bit Ninja said:

you're playing at 1600x900 so of course 8gb is enough

Well that's my old settings (I just built a new PC, thank you for reminding me)

Well it seems that I'm wrong. Sorry.

 

[Laurence Brenner]

5 minutes ago, 8-Bit Ninja said:

what res? remember of the op is looking at a 6700k + 1080, meaning their going 1440p or possibly 4k, in either of these use cases 8gb isn't enough 

Currently I am just going for a gaming monitor(1080p,144hz) and a misc monitor(1080p,60hz)

[vorticalbox]

16 minutes ago, jman116 said:

DDR4, as it's the latest and future proff. 8 Gig's more than enough, believe me.

Seeing as most clients are 32bit, and 32bit applications at limited to 2 GB of ram unless it uses large address then it can use 4GB. I would say so too and before anyone says chrome uses more than 2 GB each tab is ran in it's own process.

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

[AnonymousGuy]

12 minutes ago, jman116 said:

I have BF1 at Ultra + 8 Gigs. I do not agree with you.

It's posted several times over on the BF forum people getting smoother / better fps going to 16gb ram from 8gb.  Bf1 in its current state is a resource pig.

 

@OP, 16GB DDR4-2133 or better and you're good to go.  RAM is one of those things where you only need "good enough" for it to make any real world difference.  

[Mira Yurizaki]

51 minutes ago, Laurence Brenner said:

Do higher frequencys achieve anything at all in terms of performance? Why do they even exists then?

It has little if any improvement to performance.

 

Why do they exist? Numbers. Most high-end PC gaming builds are just to show off how big someone's e-peen is.

 

Well no, if you use integrated graphics, higher memory speed helps a lot. Another area that it helps in of all things is file compression/decompression. Otherwise it helps little in anything else.

[SkilledRebuilds]

2 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

It has little if any improvement to performance.

 

Why do they exist? Numbers. Most high-end PC gaming builds are just to show off how big someone's e-peen is.

 

Well no, if you use integrated graphics, higher memory speed helps a lot. Another area that it helps in of all things is file compression/decompression. Otherwise it helps little in anything else.

For Gaming, your right.

 

It helps greatly when your CPU is 100% tapped out....Games don't usually get to this level of CPU abuse

 

(Rendering/Encoding/Scientific Calculations)

Having more memory bandwidth certainly helps in other extreme situations too. (Not just iGPU and File Compression)

[asand1]

3 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

Seeing as most clients are 32bit, and 32bit applications at limited to 2 GB of ram unless it uses large address then it can use 4GB. I would say so too and before anyone says chrome uses more than 2 GB each tab is ran in it's own process.

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx

Anyone asking about the best RAM for gaming on LTT is not likely to be running 32Bit.

[Mira Yurizaki]

40 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

For Gaming, your right.

 

It helps greatly when your CPU is 100% tapped out....Games don't usually get to this level of CPU abuse

 

(Rendering/Encoding/Scientific Calculations)

Having more memory bandwidth certainly helps in other extreme situations too. (Not just iGPU and File Compression)

My statements were based on benchmarks I've seen over the years. But here's a more recent one: 

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell

 

Games can also peg a CPU to 100%. Ever try a 32 bot match in UT3?

[vagabond139]

The fastest RAM that is 8GB or greater. RAM speed can make a difference during gaming.

[vorticalbox]

9 hours ago, asand1 said:

Anyone asking about the best RAM for gaming on LTT is not likely to be running 32Bit.

no, but the game clients are 32bit therefore still have this limitation. 32bit programs are limited to a maximum of 4GB of RAM on a 64 bit os.