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How much memory is enough for gaming?

Ultimate_PIMP
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So i'm building this computer for my friend and he has a really tight budget.

In order to be in his budget range he can only afford to get 4gb of ram.

Will this affect gaming in any way? He's got a 7870 gpu and an fx-6300.

 

Is 4gb going to affect his games? Whats the minimum amount of ram you would use for gaming?

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8GB generally, 16GB for "future proofing". Anything more is useless. 

 

Might have to just deal with 4GB then.

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8 with 1600 mhz.

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8GB certainly comes in handy when you multitask, and is recommended for future releases going forward. As for speeds, either of 1,333 MHz or 1,600 MHz is fine.

4GB may be pushing it.

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4GB is the bare minimum, 8GB is the recommended amount for a solid experience, and 16GB is more than you'll need in any game before the rest of the PC is outdated.

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I'd say 4GB is minimum nowadays, but 8GB is the golden middle of price-performance 

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just get 6 if you cant get 8, 3 sticks of 2 is cheap and since its budget who cares about looks

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4GB+=acceptable

8GB=perfect

16GB+=even better

 

8GB of RAM is the best price:performance, you will get away with 4 and anything above 8 is a bonus! :)

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it's not good for upgrading, but 6GB is the same price as 4GB right now, so he should get that.

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RAM's doubled almost in price now... But 6GB will do, but you won't get dual channel on DDR3 I don't think, I've not come across a 1GB stick of DDR3

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If he was using something like a 7770 or 7750 I would say stick with 4GB since the budget is tight.

 

But since he's using a 7870 it seems like a waste to bottleneck it.

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4 gigs is ok, but I have 8 gigs and there's no need for more in my opinion.

 

 

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Keep posting guys!

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8GB for couple of years, games use around 5.5GB. No point in getting 16GB for "futureproofing", we will use DDR4 when games exceed 8GB mark and in 99% cases you can upgrade to 16GB if needed by just buying another 2x4GB kit.

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At the very least I would recommend 8GB's. With 16GB's of memory I tend to use anywhere upwards of 30% or more.

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8 gigs is enough for gamimg and a good bit of multitasking. 16gigs is cause you can and even better multitasking.

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i would usually hit 5.5gb usage with win7 in battlefield 3 on some maps, just to put that into perspective for you

 

just remember, battlefield 3 is a few years old now..

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Get 1x4. It's enough for the start. Once his system is clogged up and slows down a few months down the road he should buy another of the exact same 1x4gb.

who cares...

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4 gb should be enough for running 1 high end game and few tabs opend, however if you want to have loads of tabs open, a few programs and more that 1 game open at the same time you should get 8 gb. 12/16gb for being future prooof

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Get 1x4. It's enough for the start. Once his system is clogged up and slows down a few months down the road he should buy another of the exact same 1x4gb.

NO! instead get 2x2gb so they run in dual channel

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NO! instead get 2x2gb so they run in dual channel

 

For upgradeability 1x4 would be better. I dunno if the extra bandwidth is really that important? It's not an APU.

who cares...

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4GB should be kind of alright? I have a laptop with 4GB VRAM and I hardly hit the cap.I only browse the web though.

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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qcFTcN4.png

skyrim running on urtla+microsoft word +11 chrome tabs+photoshop+sony vegas all sunning at the same time USING 3.26gb RAM on my computer, so 4gb would be enough for running game and few other programs but go for 8gb if running multiple games or a lot of background applications

4.2GHZ VALIDATION, GALLERY, Most expensive software you own (clicky thread)

 Intel Core i5 760 2.8GHZ @3.3ghz(4C),Asus P7H55/USB3,Antec TP550 80+bronze,Gigabyte GTX 570 SOC@955/2120 1050MV,windows 3.1,8GB DDR3 1333MHZ @~1450mhz,,500gb hdd, 160gb 
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4GB should be kind of alright? I have a laptop with 4GB VRAM and I hardly hit the cap.I only browse the web though.

VRAM is diffrent from RAM

VRAM is allocated to GPU

i dont think your laptop has 4gb vram, i think you mean ram

4.2GHZ VALIDATION, GALLERY, Most expensive software you own (clicky thread)

 Intel Core i5 760 2.8GHZ @3.3ghz(4C),Asus P7H55/USB3,Antec TP550 80+bronze,Gigabyte GTX 570 SOC@955/2120 1050MV,windows 3.1,8GB DDR3 1333MHZ @~1450mhz,,500gb hdd, 160gb 
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