Ram upgrade necessary?

[SuperCuber]

Hi ltt com! 

 

I recently upgraded from an i5-6700k to an i7-7700k on a z270 mb. 

At the moment there is a pair of 2133mhz ddr4 sticks in there and i wonder if that, combined with a gtx1080ti, bottlenecks the system. 

I have to mention, I only use it for gaming but an average improvement of 15fps+ would lead me to consider upgrading. 

 

Thanks for your advice!!

SuperCuber 

[mtz_federico]

9 minutes ago, SuperCuber said:

Hi ltt com! 

 

I recently upgraded from an i5-6700k to an i7-7700k on a z270 mb. 

At the moment there is a pair of 2133mhz ddr4 sticks in there and i wonder if that, combined with a gtx1080ti, bottlenecks the system. 

I have to mention, I only use it for gaming but an average improvement of 15fps+ would lead me to consider upgrading. 

 

Thanks for your advice!!

SuperCuber 

How much memory does each stick have?

[Linker]

2133mhz is pretty slow for ddr4, but I don't think it should make too much of a difference on Intel, but don't quote me on that.

(Though if you were running Ryzen that would be a different story)

[SuperCuber]

28 minutes ago, mtz_federico said:

How much memory does each stick have?

Right now 8Gb each, I would upgrade to 16gB quad.

[Dedayog]

What is 16GB quad?  You mean 4x 16GB sticks = 64GB?  Or 4x 4GB sticks = 16GB?

 

 

[SuperCuber]

Just now, jstudrawa said:

What is 16GB quad?  You mean 4x 16GB sticks = 64GB?  Or 4x 4GB sticks = 16GB?

 

 

The second so 4x4Gb. 

[Dedayog]

Just now, SuperCuber said:

The second so 4x4Gb. 

I would, if anything, get a 2x 8GB set of 3200MHz RAM if you can't set your current sticks to 3000MHz +.

 

Don't fill up all 4 slots with 4GB sticks.  Then you won't have room to expand to 32GB RAM later.

[SuperCuber]

Just now, jstudrawa said:

I would, if anything, get a 2x 8GB set of 3200MHz RAM if you can't set your current sticks to 3000MHz +.

Can you tell me why? Don't games take an advantage out of quad channel? 

[Dedayog]

Just now, SuperCuber said:

Can you tell me why? Don't games take an advantage out of quad channel? 

Your motherboard supports 4 sticks, but uses them in dual channel mode.  It's mostly just HEDT systems that do quad channel.

 

 

[SuperCuber]

1 minute ago, jstudrawa said:

Your motherboard supports 4 sticks, but uses them in dual channel mode.  It's mostly just HEDT systems that do quad channel.

 

 

Thanks for the help! 

 

@Admins you can close this thread I guess. 

[Zando_]

24 minutes ago, Linker said:

2133mhz is pretty slow for ddr4, but I don't think it should make too much of a difference on Intel, but don't quote me on that.

(Though if you were running Ryzen that would be a different story)

Ryzen's infinity fabric depends (depended? apparently Zen 2 is a bit different) on RAM speeds or something, higher clocked RAM gives the CPU a boost as well. 

On Intel the CPU really doesn't care, it's on an app to app, game to game basis. Apparently Fallout 4, 76, and other games that stream stuff from the RAM get a massive boost with faster DIMMs, games that don't really care won't see an improvement. 
 

10 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

I would, if anything, get a 2x 8GB set of 3200MHz RAM if you can't set your current sticks to 3000MHz +.

 

Don't fill up all 4 slots with 4GB sticks.  Then you won't have room to expand to 32GB RAM later.

^^^ Always go for half the DIMM count you can fit. Both to leave room for future upgrades if you need more RAM in future, and to let your RAM clock higher, easier. More DIMMs puts more stress on your IPC, if you decide to manually tweak your RAM you probably won't be able to push 4 DIMMs as far as 2. 

On HEDT you'd go for a 4x kit (like I have) because they support quad channel (or triple channel on X58, hexa channel on the newest Intel Xeon based platforms), consumer stuff only runs dual channel. 4 sticks won't be any faster than 2 so there's no reason to put the stress on your IPC unless you need a large amount of RAM. Up to 32GB you can do on 2 DIMMs, above that you need to go to 4x (I know there's 32GB DIMMs but I think they're all server stuff). 

[SuperCuber]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Ryzen's infinity fabric depends (depended? apparently Zen 2 is a bit different) on RAM speeds or something, higher clocked RAM gives the CPU a boost as well. 

On Intel the CPU really doesn't care, it's on an app to app. game to game basis. Apparently Fallout 4, 76, and other games that stream stuff from the RAM get a massive boost with faster DIMMs, games that don't really care won't see an improvement. 
 

^^^ Always go for half the DIMM count you can fit. Both to leave room for future upgrades if you need more RAM in future, and to let your RAM clock higher, easier. More DIMMs puts more stress on your IPC, if you decide to manually tweak your RAM you probably won't be able to push 4 DIMMs as far as 2. 

On HEDT you'd go for a 4x kit (like I have) because they support quad channel (or triple channel on X58, hexa channel on the newest Intel Xeon based platforms), consumer stuff only runs dual channel. 4 sticks won't be any faster than 2 so there's no reason to put the stress on your IPC unless you need a large amount of RAM. Up to 32GB you can do on 2 DIMMs, above that you need to go to 4x (I know there's 32GB DIMMs but I think they're all server stuff). 

Thank you, that makes totally sense! 

[Dedayog]

Just now, SuperCuber said:

Thank you, that makes totally sense! 

Right, basically exactly what I said but he used more of those letter things

 

Now, are you SURE they are 2133MHz sticks, or is that what software or Windows is reporting?  They may be faster and you need to put XMP on.

[SuperCuber]

13 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

Right, basically exactly what I said but he used more of those letter things

 

Now, are you SURE they are 2133MHz sticks, or is that what software or Windows is reporting?  They may be faster and you need to put XMP on.

The descriptions says 2133mhz and I tried turning on xmp without an effect. Those are corsair vengeance sticks so maybe there is some oc potential but for sure not up to 3200mhz. 

 

https://www.alternate.de/Corsair/DIMM-16GB-DDR4-2133-Kit-Arbeitsspeicher/html/product/1216650?

 

So do you thinks it would make a noticable difference @jstudrawa & @Zando Bob ?

[Zando_]

5 minutes ago, SuperCuber said:

The descriptions says 2133mhz and I tried turning on xmp without an effect. Those are corsair vengeance sticks so maybe there is some oc potential but for sure not up to 3200mhz. 

 

https://www.alternate.de/Corsair/DIMM-16GB-DDR4-2133-Kit-Arbeitsspeicher/html/product/1216650?

 

So do you thinks it would make a noticable difference @jstudrawa & @Zando Bob ?

What games are you playing? You'll get 10-30 point gains in a Cinebench R20 run with faster RAM, that's about it. Outside of synthetic benches it depends on the game. 

If you have the budget for it I'd just get a 2x8GB or 2x16GB kit of 3200Mhz CL16 or 3000Mhz CL15 stuff and call it a day, that's the sweet spot for performance on most platforms and you won't need to worry about your RAM bottlenecking you in games. 

 

[SuperCuber]

52 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

What games are you playing? You'll get 10-30 point gains in a Cinebench R20 run with faster RAM, that's about it. Outside of synthetic benches it depends on the game. 

If you have the budget for it I'd just get a 2x8GB or 2x16GB kit of 3200Mhz CL16 or 3000Mhz CL15 stuff and call it a day, that's the sweet spot for performance on most platforms and you won't need to worry about your RAM bottlenecking you in games. 

 

Stuff like GTA5, Borderlands, Dying Light, Battlefield, CoD, Metro..

 

All right. Thanks again!!

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, SuperCuber said:

Stuff like GTA5, Borderlands, Dying Light, Battlefield, CoD, Metro..

 

All right. Thanks again!!

Apparently RAM can make a big difference in GTA 5, so an upgrade would be noticeable there. 

You said 15+ fps gains would be worth it: 

Looks like 15-30fps gains depending on what's going on, so defo a worthwhile upgrade. 3200Mhz would be a slight boost over 3000, and it's usually the same price or like $2 more so I'd go with that. 

Should be able to find comparison videos like this for the other games if you search around.