ram 8GB vs 16GB RAM?

[goshot]

I'll be building a new budget rig, I'll be using it for writing, light gaming, watching shows, programming, and school work. I'm not the biggest gamer, i'll mostly play indie games, eSports titles and sometimes stuff that peaks my interest like Dark Souls 3, that's why i was thinking about cutting down to 8GB and save some cash. I was wondering who else other than gamers need more than 8GB and whether id need more? 8GB seems more than enough for multitasking, browsering, watching shows, having multiple programs opened and stuff.

Does having 2 monitors take more RAM?

About how much RAM does begginer to intermediate programming take on 8GB and 16GB systems respectively? And how much does ram does programming bigger projects like games and software take, on 8GB and 16GB systems again?

The prices for the 8GB (2 x 4GB) at 3000MHz is about 100-110 BGN, the 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3000MHz is 164 BGN.

[Skiiwee29]

Get 16. Everything continues to get more RAM intensive these days as they progress and grow. You will likely run into scenarios at 8 where you are out of memory and run into system stability and issues. 

[Caennanu]

If looking to the future, just get 16gb, just like Skiiwee up here said.

 

Other than that, not even gamers need more than 8gb, they just like to have more. Which primarily comes from early acces games which are not optimized properly and thus use resources fairly inefficient. Also with the increased amount of locally hosted games, where you have to run a localized server, the increase in ram is needed. But if sticking to solo play or games where you connect to a server, you generally don't need more than 8gb.

 

When it comes to programming, it is all about what you are programming for. Games and 3d models (however i don't actually consider that programming) tend to take more ram, but with this type of programming, you also need additional hardware to back it up. such as core's and graphics processing power, and in some cases read and write speeds to the harddrive('s).

 

If it is about making a webiste, writing advanced sql query's, or even running a local database for testing purposes, again you won't need more than 8gb. Writing is generally not the issue, its executing and testing where the demands start playing a role.

 

Hope this helps.

[nox_]

If budget allows always go for 16 GB, that's really the best thing to do, you can make do with 8, but I would get 8 only in very budget limited builds.

[alatron978]

Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3000mhz cl15 2x8 and overclock it.

[mariushm]

Get 16 and if you're really tight on budget, you can go lower to 2666 Mhz.

 

If you buy memory from a brand like Crucial (which is owned by Micron who makes the memory chips on the sticks) you have a very high chance those memory chips are just as good as the chips on 3000 Mhz or 3200 Mhz sticks... so you could use them at 3000 Mhz and a bit higher timings and maybe 1.3v..1.35v instead of 1.2v

 

Ryzen 3rd gen doesn't suffer so much from low memory frequencies, as you can manually lock the Infinity Fabric to 1800 Mhz and have the memory running at different ratio... in previous Ryzen processors the Infinity Fabric was coupled with the ram frequency so lower frequency hurt the cpu performance.

 

[goshot]

11 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Get 16 and if you're really tight on budget, you can go lower to 2666 Mhz.

 

If you buy memory from a brand like Crucial (which is owned by Micron who makes the memory chips on the sticks) you have a very high chance those memory chips are just as good as the chips on 3000 Mhz or 3200 Mhz sticks... so you could use them at 3000 Mhz and a bit higher timings and maybe 1.3v..1.35v instead of 1.2v

 

Ryzen 3rd gen doesn't suffer so much from low memory frequencies, as you can manually lock the Infinity Fabric to 1800 Mhz and have the memory running at different ratio... in previous Ryzen processors the Infinity Fabric was coupled with the ram frequency so lower frequency hurt the cpu performance.

 

Ill be getting a Ryzen 5 1600, 3rd gens are too expensive. Thanks for the info about 3rd gen Ryzen, i didn't know that! But why go with 16 over 8 GB?

 

15 minutes ago, noxdeouroboros said:

If budget allows always go for 16 GB, that's really the best thing to do, you can make do with 8, but I would get 8 only in very budget limited builds.

But why get 16GB instead of 8GB?

[nox_]

3 minutes ago, goshot said:

But why get 16GB instead of 8GB?

A bit of "future proofing", but it's not necessary, you can make do with 8 if you want to save up.

[nsqvk]

16GB, no question. Even chrome uses a lot of RAM. Newer games use a lot more RAM, if you check system requirements you will see that some require MINIMUM of 8GB and recommended of at least 12GB. 

[goshot]

19 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

If looking to the future, just get 16gb, just like Skiiwee up here said.

 

Other than that, not even gamers need more than 8gb, they just like to have more. Which primarily comes from early acces games which are not optimized properly and thus use resources fairly inefficient. Also with the increased amount of locally hosted games, where you have to run a localized server, the increase in ram is needed. But if sticking to solo play or games where you connect to a server, you generally don't need more than 8gb.

 

When it comes to programming, it is all about what you are programming for. Games and 3d models (however i don't actually consider that programming) tend to take more ram, but with this type of programming, you also need additional hardware to back it up. such as core's and graphics processing power, and in some cases read and write speeds to the harddrive('s).

 

If it is about making a webiste, writing advanced sql query's, or even running a local database for testing purposes, again you won't need more than 8gb. Writing is generally not the issue, its executing and testing where the demands start playing a role.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the long response! I am trying to make the rig somewhat futureproof and i want it to last 5+ years.

I have a question about the games, i didn't quiet catch this part:

21 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

But if sticking to solo play or games where you connect to a server, you generally don't need more than 8gb.

What did you mean exactly? Isn't that pretty much all games? What about AAA games (which i dont think ill play that much) and servers like WoW, Minecraft? Idk how optimized most new games are but from reviews from Hardware Unboxed ive heard that some games liek Shadow of the Tomb Raider need 9 GBs and stutter if i have 8GB's or less on the highest settings

[nsqvk]

1 minute ago, goshot said:

Thanks for the long response! I am trying to make the rig somewhat futureproof and i want it to last 5+ years.

If its quad channel mobo get 2x8 so you can add 2 more in the future.

[goshot]

2 minutes ago, nsqvk said:

16GB, no question. Even chrome uses a lot of RAM. Newer games use a lot more RAM, if you check system requirements you will see that some require MINIMUM of 8GB and recommended of at least 12GB. 

Regarding RAM usage, iirc Windows changes the RAM usage of programs depending on how much RAM you have. I mean, Windows and Chrome will take a different amount of RAM on both 8GB and 16GB configurations. So should some games, but newer games indeed work better with more tahn 8GBs but then again im not that big of a gamer.

[Dedayog]

32 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

If looking to the future, just get 16gb, just like Skiiwee up here said.

 

Other than that, not even gamers need more than 8gb, they just like to have more. Which primarily comes from early acces games which are not optimized properly and thus use resources fairly inefficient. Also with the increased amount of locally hosted games, where you have to run a localized server, the increase in ram is needed. But if sticking to solo play or games where you connect to a server, you generally don't need more than 8gb.

 

When it comes to programming, it is all about what you are programming for. Games and 3d models (however i don't actually consider that programming) tend to take more ram, but with this type of programming, you also need additional hardware to back it up. such as core's and graphics processing power, and in some cases read and write speeds to the harddrive('s).

 

If it is about making a webiste, writing advanced sql query's, or even running a local database for testing purposes, again you won't need more than 8gb. Writing is generally not the issue, its executing and testing where the demands start playing a role.

 

Hope this helps.

You contradict yourself.  Gamers don't need more than 8GB but unoptimized games cause us to need more?

 

Depends on the games but some heavily modded games push 16GB usage as well, making 32GB necessary if you have other processes going.

 

@nsqvk It's still dual channel, not quad, for 4 sticks on most motherboards.  

 

[goshot]

1 minute ago, nsqvk said:

If its quad channel mobo get 2x8 so you can add 2 more in the future.

It is, but adding even more ram to a 16GB PC in the future for hecking writing and browsing seems like a overkill  Could it be that you ment i get 2x4GBs?

[Dedayog]

Just now, goshot said:

It is, but adding even more ram to a 16GB PC in the future for hecking writing and browsing seems like a overkill  Could it be that you ment i get 2x4GBs?

No,get 2x8GB and then get 2x8GB more if you surpass 16GB usage in the future.

[Caennanu]

4 minutes ago, goshot said:

What did you mean exactly? Isn't that pretty much all games? What about AAA games (which i dont think ill play that much) and servers like WoW, Minecraft? Idk how optimized most new games are but from reviews from Hardware Unboxed ive heard that some games liek Shadow of the Tomb Raider need 9 GBs and stutter if i have 8GB's or less on the highest settings

That really depends on the games you play. Ark Survival Evolved, Empyrion, Green Hell, Satisfactory can all ask you to run a server locally so that you can play with your friends. Bigger MMO's like WoW, Everquest, Rift, FF will have you connect to their servers yes, but their clients are optimized and offer a wide variety of settings to lower specced players so they do not miss out on possible income. Regardless of the players rig, its the purchase that counts to them.

 

AAA games can use up a lot of memory yes, but once again like MMO's, they offer a wide variety in settings so that you can tailor it to your needs. If you want to play with all the bells and whistles on, and run 60FPS on 4k is a completely different story from playing at 1080p with limited bells and whistles. So yeah, eventually it depends on the question, do you want to scale your settings or your budget? :d

[nsqvk]

Just now, goshot said:

It is, but adding even more ram to a 16GB PC in the future for hecking writing and browsing seems like a overkill  Could it be that you ment i get 2x4GBs?

I didn't know you will be using the PC for such light loads (Didn't read ), get 8gb single stick and just add 8 more in the future.

[nsqvk]

5 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

sqvk It's still dual channel, not quad, for 4 sticks on most motherboards.  

Bad phrasing, i meant if the motherboard has 4 slots. 

[Caennanu]

6 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

You contradict yourself.  Gamers don't need more than 8GB but unoptimized games cause us to need more?

There will always be exceptions, but following the current market, more and more games are delivered in beta / early acces states having less and less optimization. It is eventually up to the player to adopt this and make this choice. If you play these games yes i would recommend 16 to 32gb games. If you are a heavily modded player yes i would also recommend 32gb. But then still, mod's generall come from the public and are not of original designs of the game. As such i have to draw a line somewhere with the assumption that most games are developped for people who game at 1080p with 8gb of ram.

[Dedayog]

Just now, Caennanu said:

There will always be exceptions, but following the current market, more and more games are delivered in beta / early acces states having less and less optimization. It is eventually up to the player to adopt this and make this choice. If you play these games yes i would recommend 16 to 32gb games. If you are a heavily modded player yes i would also recommend 32gb. But then still, mod's generall come from the public and are not of original designs of the game. As such i have to draw a line somewhere with the assumption that most games are developped for people who game at 1080p with 8gb of ram.

While I can get behind the theory of 1080p and 8GB of RAM, I also know more people don't run a lean PC.  Other processes, like browers and Discord and Youtube etc all contribute to RAM usage over 8GB.  

 

Just no way I can recommend 8GB these days.  If you're cash strapped of course, but if you can slide it... 16GB.

[goshot]

4 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

You contradict yourself.  Gamers don't need more than 8GB but unoptimized games cause us to need more?

 

Depends on the games but some heavily modded games push 16GB usage as well, making 32GB necessary if you have other processes going.

 

@nsqvk It's still dual channel, not quad, for 4 sticks on most motherboards.  

 

1 minute ago, nsqvk said:

I didn't know you will be using the PC for such light loads (Didn't read ), get 8gb single stick and just add 8 more in the future.

 

I'm not going to be playing anything heavily modded i think, i havent even researched that many games ill be playing. I'll mostly be playing Dark souls 3, overwatch, cs:go, minecraft and other stuff. It's not that demanding stuff. Haven't looked much into newer titles. Not really interested.

4 minutes ago, Caennanu said:

So yeah, eventually it depends on the question, do you want to scale your settings or your budget? :d

Im not too sure myself

2 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

No,get 2x8GB and then get 2x8GB more if you surpass 16GB usage in the future.

I think itll be hard for me to utalize 16GBs, i don't think ill need to upgrade any more than that.

 

 

[Fasauceome]

Didn't think so many people would say 16GB. 

 

8GB is plenty, I even considered 8GB for my own rig honestly. You can drop in ram at any point down the line, if you aren't shooting for very high frequency ram then 4 dimms isn't a problem. Your programming is just that, programming. It's not compiling, which I think some people confuse with programming, which is a ton more demanding. Typing code, web browsing, surfing the web with video playback, none of these things would be a good reason to get 16GB. Esports games and dark souls also won't require 16GB. 

[mariushm]

21 minutes ago, goshot said:

Ill be getting a Ryzen 5 1600, 3rd gens are too expensive. Thanks for the info about 3rd gen Ryzen, i didn't know that! But why go with 16 over 8 GB?

 

But why get 16GB instead of 8GB?

You'll hit the page file less... which can help extend the life of some very cheap SSDs with little endurance... kinda not even worth mentioning but nevertheless there is something to it.

For ex you have a 120GB SSD with 50-70TB of lifetime writes and you're writing 10-20 GB a day just swapping data to and from ram, in a year you burn through 20-30 TB or around a third of the drive's lifetime. Of course, in 2-3 years when you burn through those 50-70 TB you'd laugh about it and just buy the cheapest 2-4 TB SSD on the shelves... that's why I say this argument is kinda pointless, it's not that important.

 

It's a good idea from an upgrade path. For example you may find a mATX version of a motherboard for 5-10$ less but it comes with only two memory slots. In this case, if you go with 2x4 GB sticks and later decide to get 2 x 8 GB, you'll have to sell those 2 x 4 GB sticks or throw them out... nobody's gonna want to buy 4 GB sticks, especially budget ones. You'll either sell them at very low price or just shelve them. People buying 4GB sticks buy high frequency single rank, low latency sticks for overclocking mostly.

If you buy board with 4 slots, then you'd be able to upgrade to 32 GB later ... if ever.

 

There's quite a few games already which start to behave badly with just 8 GB of memory. They all still work, but a lot of games will suffer performance already with just 8 GB.

16 GB is more future proof and safer, and for a year or so at least, I'd say you'd be fine with just 16 GB.

 

With more memory you can also experiment with RAM Disks ... like let's say you want to code something and don't want to risk doing something to screw your hard drive... you can quickly set up a ram disk of 4-8 GB and test your programs on the ram drive. When you're done, just kill the ram drive...

ram disks are also very helpful when working with lots of small files... for ex let's say you have to decompress an archive with 20k files, all 10-100 KB ... a ram disk will be several times faster than working on mechanical drive or ssd.

 

[nsqvk]

2 minutes ago, goshot said:

I'm not going to be playing anything heavily modded i think, i havent even researched that many games ill be playing. I'll mostly be playing Dark souls 3, overwatch, cs:go, minecraft and other stuff. It's not that demanding stuff. Haven't looked much into newer titles. Not really interested.

You will do fine with 8gb, i have 8 aswell and it works well.

[goshot]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

Didn't think so many people would say 16GB. 

 

8GB is plenty, I even considered 8GB for my own rig honestly. You can drop in ram at any point down the line, if you aren't shooting for very high frequency ram then 4 dimms isn't a problem. Your programming is just that, programming. It's not compiling, which I think some people confuse with programming, which is a ton more demanding. Typing code, web browsing, surfing the web, none of these things would be a good reason to get 16GB. Esports games and dark souls also won't require 16GB. 

Thanks about the responce! I'll be getting a Ryzen 5 1600, it's system memory specification is listed as 2666 MHz but people have told me that it should work with higher frequencies. Any way i'll need 3000 MHz at most.

Would you 2x4GBs or 1x8GB for now?