Worth adding 16gbs of ddr4 ram?

[Gapi]

My pc looks like this right now: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/w7ng34 It was built in 2019, making it 4+ years old.

 

It's been serving me well, but falls behind with some newer games. It's still capable of playing them but I have to resort to low settings and upscaling to make them playable.

I often have to close background apps like my browser and disabling instant replay to get games to perform better. 

 

I'm not looking to spend hundreds on upgrades right now. As buying a new board for ddr5 would come expensive, I figure increasing my ram amount to 32GB might help at least a little.

 

I currently have 16GBs of Ripjaws V 3200MHz. I found another set of the same ram for 40€. Would the upgrade be worth it right now? I can't think of anything else that would help for the money. Or should I hold out for a while longer for a bigger upgrade? Though I doubt that will be any time soon, the PC is still good for most my needs.

[Tetras]

It's pointless buying more DDR4 if you're going to upgrade to DDR5 soon, but if not, it's not the worst idea. The only thing is, while it might help with general playability and multitasking (quality of life, I guess you could say), it's not going to help any with games needing low settings and upscaling.

[filpo]

1 minute ago, Gapi said:

I currently have 16GBs of Ripjaws V 3200MHz. I found another set of the same ram for 40€. Would the upgrade be worth it right now?

do you need more RAM? If not then don't get the extra kit

 

2 minutes ago, Gapi said:

It's been serving me well, but falls behind with some newer games. It's still capable of playing them but I have to resort to low settings and upscaling to make them playable.

I often have to close background apps like my browser and disabling instant replay to get games to perform better.

Is your CPU bottlenecking your gpu? Such as high cpu usage and less than ~70-80% GPU usage?

3 minutes ago, Gapi said:

I figure increasing my ram amount to 32GB might help at least a little.

it'll help with multitasking but probably not with browsers open during games since things such as videos while gaming will still use the CPU and not just eat up more RAM

 

3 minutes ago, Gapi said:

Or should I hold out for a while longer for a bigger upgrade? Though I doubt that will be any time soon, the PC is still good for most my needs.

Your case doesn't have a mesh panel which is a big no no for temps. But if your temps aren't high then don't bother with the upgrade 

A case like the Zalman S2 Zalman S2 ATX Mid Tower Case (S2) - PCPartPicker

or the cc560 could be good replacements Deepcool CC560 ATX Mid Tower Case (R-CC560-BKGAA4-G-1) - PCPartPicker

[191x7]

7 minutes ago, Gapi said:

My pc looks like this right now: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/w7ng34 It was built in 2019, making it 4+ years old.

 

It's been serving me well, but falls behind with some newer games. It's still capable of playing them but I have to resort to low settings and upscaling to make them playable.

I often have to close background apps like my browser and disabling instant replay to get games to perform better. 

 

I'm not looking to spend hundreds on upgrades right now. As buying a new board for ddr5 would come expensive, I figure increasing my ram amount to 32GB might help at least a little.

 

I currently have 16GBs of Ripjaws V 3200MHz. I found another set of the same ram for 40€. Would the upgrade be worth it right now? I can't think of anything else that would help for the money. Or should I hold out for a while longer for a bigger upgrade? Though I doubt that will be any time soon, the PC is still good for most my needs.

That system can be vastly upgraded for a small amount of cash.

Adding more RAM, 40€, small boost

Adding a Ryzen 5700X, 150-200€, a nice boost

Upgrading the GPU to a Radeon 6800/6800XT/7800XT for 500-600€ or a Radeon 6700XT/6750XT for 350-400€, quite a boost

[podkall]

33 minutes ago, Gapi said:

I often have to close background apps like my browser and disabling instant replay to get games to perform better.

Have you checked your RAM usage? Because even 80% full RAM wouldn't really bottleneck it that much.

[LenovoS12]

20 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

That system can be vastly upgraded for a small amount of cash.

Adding more RAM, 40€, small boost

Adding a Ryzen 5700X, 150-200€, a nice boost

Upgrading the GPU to a Radeon 6800/6800XT/7800XT for 500-600€ or a Radeon 6700XT/6750XT for 350-400€, quite a boost

 

23 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

That system can be vastly upgraded for a small amount of cash.

Adding more RAM, 40€, small boost

Adding a Ryzen 5700X, 150-200€, a nice boost

Upgrading the GPU to a Radeon 6800/6800XT/7800XT for 500-600€ or a Radeon 6700XT/6750XT for 350-400€, quite a boost

 

[overbuilt_gaming]

A faster CPU would allow you to multitask more efficiently.  The 5700xt GPU is about the equivalent of a 1080ti.  I'm assuming you play games on your 1440p monitor and have your 1080p monitor secondary?  Have you tried switching them around and seeing how your performance is?  Personally, I don't think the ram would help you any and if it were me, I would spend $200 on either a 5700x, 5800x or a 5600x3d.  Both can drop right in with your motherboard with a bios update.  The 5700x has a TDP of 65w, while the other cpu's have a TDP of 105w, and your cooler is good for up to 130w.  So, unless you're looping Cinebench you wouldn't get any thermal throttling unless your case is very restrictive (Which is what someone else already mentioned)   

 

For me I would rather play at 1080p medium to high, vs 1440p low - maybe this is all you need to do for some extra life.

 

 

[Gapi]

6 minutes ago, podkall said:

Have you checked your RAM usage? Because even 80% full RAM wouldn't really bottleneck it that much.

90%+ in game menus, reaching near 100% in gameplay. Around 60% idling.

[Gapi]

31 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

That system can be vastly upgraded for a small amount of cash.

Adding more RAM, 40€, small boost

Adding a Ryzen 5700X, 150-200€, a nice boost

Upgrading the GPU to a Radeon 6800/6800XT/7800XT for 500-600€ or a Radeon 6700XT/6750XT for 350-400€, quite a boost

Perhaps I'll consider getting a new CPU instead. But would I still need more ram beside it considering it's high usage?

8 minutes ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

A faster CPU would allow you to multitask more efficiently.  The 5700xt GPU is about the equivalent of a 1080ti.  I'm assuming you play games on your 1440p monitor and have your 1080p monitor secondary?  Have you tried switching them around and seeing how your performance is?  Personally, I don't think the ram would help you any and if it were me, I would spend $200 on either a 5700x, 5800x or a 5600x3d.  Both can drop right in with your motherboard with a bios update.  The 5700x has a TDP of 65w, while the other cpu's have a TDP of 105w, and your cooler is good for up to 130w.  So, unless you're looping Cinebench you wouldn't get any thermal throttling unless your case is very restrictive (Which is what someone else already mentioned)   

 

For me I would rather play at 1080p medium to high, vs 1440p low - maybe this is all you need to do for some extra life.

 

 

It's a bit awkward switching to my secondary monitor due to it's position and smaller size. Though I tried playing at 1080p on my 1440p monitor and it just doesn't look as good as upscaled 1440p. Also thanks for the CPU recommendations, I'll consider those.  

[191x7]

1 minute ago, Gapi said:

Perhaps I'll consider getting a new CPU instead. But would I still need more ram beside it considering it's high usage?

It's a bit awkward switching to my secondary monitor due to it's position and smaller size. Though I tried playing at 1080p on my 1440p monitor and it just doesn't look as good as upscaled 1440p. Also thanks for the CPU recommendations, I'll consider those.  

I would recommend doing the RAM upgrade and the CPU upgrade.

[Gapi]

43 minutes ago, filpo said:

Is your CPU bottlenecking your gpu? Such as high cpu usage and less than ~70-80% GPU usage?

it'll help with multitasking but probably not with browsers open during games since things such as videos while gaming will still use the CPU and not just eat up more RAM

Both tend to get maxed out in games, GPU is pretty much 100% at all times with demanding games. 
One thing I forgot to add, though I close background apps in various demanding games - which does improve performance slightly, one game in particular (FIFA 23) has this bug where the controller stops working randomly. The only way I've found to stop this is to disable instant replay and close background apps. This is a game specific thing of course, but I still figure that more ram would help me at least keep instant replay on.

44 minutes ago, filpo said:

Your case doesn't have a mesh panel which is a big no no for temps. But if your temps aren't high then don't bother with the upgrade 

A case like the Zalman S2 Zalman S2 ATX Mid Tower Case (S2) - PCPartPicker

or the cc560 could be good replacements Deepcool CC560 ATX Mid Tower Case (R-CC560-BKGAA4-G-1) - PCPartPicker

Thanks for the suggestions, but temps are fine atm! 

[filpo]

1 minute ago, Gapi said:

One thing I forgot to add, though I close background apps in various demanding games - which does improve performance slightly, one game in particular (FIFA 23) has this bug where the controller stops working randomly. The only way I've found to stop this is to disable instant replay and close background apps. This is a game specific thing of course, but I still figure that more ram would help me at least keep instant replay on.

are you going to be upgrading to ddr5 anytime soon? If not then I'd say sure, get the ram upgrade

[Gapi]

7 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

I would recommend doing the RAM upgrade and the CPU upgrade.

I haven't been following newer cpus, but at the time amd cpus performance was very reliant on ram clock speeds. Is that still the case? If so, wouldn't it be wasteful to buy more ddr4 instead of buying a new board for ddr5 to get more performance out of the cpu? 

[overbuilt_gaming]

14 minutes ago, Gapi said:

90%+ in game menus, reaching near 100% in gameplay. Around 60% idling.

60% idle?  What all do you have open?  It does sound like your needs have changed over the years.  Also, what games are you playing?  Are you using w10 or w11?

 

8 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

It's a bit awkward switching to my secondary monitor due to it's position and smaller size.

I mean switch the primary and secondary displays around in windows and do it for an hour or so to test.    1080p (even upscaled) will look funny on 1440p because it's not it's native resolution.  

[overbuilt_gaming]

3 minutes ago, Gapi said:

I haven't been following newer cpus, but at the time amd cpus performance was very reliant on ram clock speeds. Is that still the case? If so, wouldn't it be wasteful to buy more ddr4 instead of buying a new board for ddr5 to get more performance out of the cpu? 

The sweet spot for the AM4 platform is 3600mhz, with you having 3200mhz already you're likely not going to notice the difference of 3-5fps average in most games.  

[Gapi]

4 minutes ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

60% idle?  What all do you have open?  It does sound like your needs have changed over the years.  Also, what games are you playing?  Are you using w10 or w11?

Just my browser (Opera Gx), discord, steam, spotify and some other background apps like game clients, for peripherals and such. Though looking at task manager it doesn't seem to quite add up? 

[overbuilt_gaming]

Well, if you wanted to optimize your system some, you could dump the discord app and just use a web browser tab, that'll free up 500mb or so.   It'll give you the same functionality and I've been using a web browser tab for years.  Had plenty of voice conversations and video streams.  Also, the game launchers can all go (Right click on the task bar icon at the bottom right, hit exit) until you are specifically playing that game (steam, ea, etc).  NZXT Cam can go unless you just want to monitor everything while you're playing.  Same with the Xbox and Spotify apps.  By my rough calculations that'll free up over 1gb of ram.  I don't use the spotify app, again I play it through a web browser tab.  

 

Also why is opera using 21% cpu?  Do you have some runaway tabs doing something weird with javascripts?  Or perhaps an addon or adblocker that is malfunctioning?  iirc if you click the > arrow there to the left of Opera GX Internet Browser it'll expand and show you which tab is doing what.  44 processes are a lot, I use Edge here and I have about 9 tabs open, with roughly my process count around 25.

[191x7]

15 minutes ago, Gapi said:

Just my browser (Opera Gx), discord, steam, spotify and some other background apps like game clients, for peripherals and such. Though looking at task manager it doesn't seem to quite add up? 

 

Add the RAM. We're talking about 40€ here, not 400€.

 

I was there; I had a 1600x and 16GB of DDR4 that worked on 2666 cause the 1st gen Ryzen didn't support it at 2933 or 3200 and a Radeon 380X 4GB on 1080p. Then I upgraded the GPU to the 5700XT and got a 1440p monitor (both) in November 2019. I upgraded to a 3600 CPU and added 16GB of RAM, that was ~May 2020, then I switched to a 5900X a year and a half ago, upgraded my GPU to the 6950XT in May, and then sidegraded to the 5800X3D in June.

I know the performance of a Ryzen 3600 paired with a 5700XT. That was good for 1440p in 2019, but sadly it's barely enough for 1080p these days.

[Gapi]

3 minutes ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

Also, the game launchers can all go (Right click on the task bar icon at the bottom right, hit exit) until you are specifically playing that game (steam, ea, etc).

I did set all game launchers to not launch on startup, but my games are so scattered everywhere I end up opening a lot of them. Though I should remember to close them more often. 

5 minutes ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

NZXT Cam can go unless you just want to monitor everything while you're playing.

I need it to set fan speeds (I have a CAM fan controller that fans are connected to). 

6 minutes ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

 Same with the Xbox and Spotify apps.  By my rough calculations that'll free up over 1gb of ram.  I don't use the spotify app, again I play it through a web browser tab.  

Sadly can't adblock spotify on browser, only through patching the installed app. 

 

All in all, considering my usage I'll probably buy the extra ram and upgrade the cpu a bit later on. Thanks for the help!

[191x7]

1 minute ago, Gapi said:

I did set all game launchers to not launch on startup, but my games are so scattered everywhere I end up opening a lot of them. Though I should remember to close them more often. 

I need it to set fan speeds (I have a CAM fan controller that fans are connected to). 

Sadly can't adblock spotify on browser, only through patching the installed app. 

 

All in all, considering my usage I'll probably buy the extra ram and upgrade the cpu a bit later on. Thanks for the help!

Till you upgrade you can try using memReduct and the Intelligent StandBy List Cleaner ISLC.

[overbuilt_gaming]

2 minutes ago, Gapi said:

Sadly can't adblock spotify on browser, only through patching the installed app.

I adblock on spotify, I use ublock Origin.  Same with YT.  The only thing I can't block consistently is twitch.

 

6 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Add the RAM. We're talking about 40€ here, not 400€.

Truth.  I've become a little jaded I guess with lower to mid-range hardware, as I sit here with a 14900k and 64gb of ram.  

 

4 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Till you upgrade you can try using memReduct and the Intelligent StandBy List Cleaner ISLC.

You beat me to it   

[191x7]

15 minutes ago, overbuilt_gaming said:

Truth.  I've become a little jaded I guess with lower to mid-range hardware, as I sit here with a 14900k and 64gb of ram.  

 

You beat me to it   

It's hard to focus on low-end and limited budgets when one has a mid-range or a high-end system.

Although my system is barely mid-range, many people would consider it an excellent system while I always strive to improve it and do upgrades.

The third strongest AMD GPU and the strongest "gaming" CPU from the previous AMD generation, and I called it barely mid-range... :S

[podkall]

2 hours ago, Gapi said:

90%+ in game menus, reaching near 100% in gameplay. Around 60% idling.

what games

[Gapi]

33 minutes ago, podkall said:

what games

Starfield, FIFA 23, Cities Skylines 2... Most games since my idle usage is pretty high.

[podkall]

4 minutes ago, Gapi said:

Most games since my idle usage is pretty high.

why won't you address that? are the programs running in the background important?