Populate all Ram modules?

[Keiran1983]

Hi there,

 

I am currently running 2 ram sticks with a combined of 32 GB of ram.  Would like to know if it makes sense to have all ram modules populated?

 

Thanks.

 

Specs are as follows:

 

• CPU
  AMD Ryzen 9 3900X CPU (12 Cores /24 Threads)
• Motherboard
  Asus ROG Strix X470-F Gaming
• RAM
  G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 memory (16 GB x 2), CL 16-19-19-39, 1.35 Votes

 

 

[WereCat]

Only if you need the extra RAM capacity. Otherwise no need to bother.

[Keiran1983]

Just now, WereCat said:

Only if you need the extra RAM capacity. Otherwise no need to bother.

Would it make sense to have a ram drive?  Cause sometimes certain games run really slow especially when it relies on the processor alot.

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, Keiran1983 said:

Would it make sense to have a ram drive?  Cause sometimes certain games run really slow especially when it relies on the processor alot.

A RAM drive isn't going to help with that, unless the game is bound by disk I/O performance. And a RAM drive is temporary, meaning you'd have to reinstall the game every time you shut down your PC.

[whm1974]

4 minutes ago, Keiran1983 said:

Would it make sense to have a ram drive?  Cause sometimes certain games run really slow especially when it relies on the processor alot.

Get a SSD. A lot cheaper and more useful then having all of the RAM Slots filled. And/or Faster CPU.

[Keiran1983]

Just now, whm1974 said:

Get a SSD. A lot cheaper and more useful then having all of the RAM Slots filled. And/or Faster CPU.

Already running on nvme SSDs.  LOL.  the only sata ssd is for data.

[jj9987]

Something else to note is that having 4 sticks puts more pressure on the memory controller. You might not be able to reach 3600 MHz with all 4 slots populated. You will not gain any performance either, unless you are regularly maxing out your RAM usage.

[leclod]

32GB is very good already

How many do use ? (see task manager)

[Beerzerker]

54 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

A RAM drive isn't going to help with that, unless the game is bound by disk I/O performance. And a RAM drive is temporary, meaning you'd have to reinstall the game every time you shut down your PC.

Well.....
Yes and no to that.

Yes, it's temporary in that each time you shutdown and then restart the machine, you have to redo/reload the RAM drive. 
However a RAM drive program that can create an image of what you put on the drive such as a game install is what to use.

This means it's a simple matter of reloading the image you'd create of the RAM drive's contents into the RAM drive program and it's back, no need to actually go through the process of reinstalling the gaming program itself.

Note any RAM drive program that's even worth having will be able to create an image and reload it whenever you'd like - If for some reason it can't, find another one to use.
 

[whm1974]

46 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Well.....
Yes and no to that.

Yes, it's temporary in that each time you shutdown and then restart the machine, you have to redo/reload the RAM drive. 
However a RAM drive program that can create an image of what you put on the drive such as a game install is what to use.

This means it's a simple matter of reloading the image you'd create of the RAM drive's contents into the RAM drive program and it's back, no need to actually go through the process of reinstalling the gaming program itself.

Note any RAM drive program that's even worth having will be able to create an image and reload it whenever you'd like - If for some reason it can't, find another one to use.

Considering that games now take up a considerable amount of Storage, 32GB would be enough for RAM Drives.

[freeagent]

Populate all slots?

 

Yes. On my 3600XT I saw an uplift running 4 sticks vs 2. Easiest place to see would be AIDA64. Its not massive, but its there, and its noticeable, and repeatable.

[whm1974]

5 hours ago, freeagent said:

Populate all slots?

 

Yes. On my 3600XT I saw an uplift running 4 sticks vs 2. Easiest place to see would be AIDA64. Its not massive, but its there, and its noticeable, and repeatable.

Unless you have a Quad Channel CPU you wouldn't see much difference between 2 sticks vs 4 sticks.

[freeagent]

1 hour ago, whm1974 said:

Unless you have a Quad Channel CPU you wouldn't see much difference between 2 sticks vs 4 sticks.

It’s not a huge difference but it’s there, if you have a Ryzen easiest place to see it is in aida64.

 

My fastest superpi times came with 4 sticks..

[CryingWimp]

If your being CPU bottlenecked more ram will make 0 difference, only a faster CPU would help. Maybe its not a CPU bottleneck and something else is wrong, considering it's a 3900x.

 

A ram drive will not make a game run faster, neither will the fastest NVMe SSD compared to even a SATA SSD.

 

32GB is enough ram for any game I've ever heard of. Do you have a bunch of chrome tabs open while gaming, and have every software on your PC set to launch at boot?

[freeagent]

Rank interleaving is a thing with zen 3.. I personally don’t need 32GB, but the gains running 4x8 vs 2x8 are undeniable, and are almost impossible to make up with a fast single rank setup. I also noticed similar, but not the same behaviour with zen 2, but I didn’t spend a lot of time with it.