2x8GB or 1x16GB

[mudzy]

So would u rather buy 2x8gb of ddr4 ram compared to 1x16GB. But 2x8gb cost £15 more and on a tight budget.

[Oshino Shinobu]

Depends on the motherboard and the use-case. 

[bince]

2x8, for the extra speed that dual channel gives you. Period.

[heimdali]

2x8 may be faster and may be an obstacle if you want to upgrade later.

 

[firecrafter711]

what mother board do you have?

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, bince said:

2x8, for the extra speed that dual channel gives you. Period.

 

1 minute ago, heimdali said:

2x8 may be faster and may be an obstacle if you want to upgrade later.

 

Mr. Nitpick here: Dual channel operation doesn't make the RAM operate any faster, it increases the bandwidth available, which is different from RAM speed.

[Guest]

Do you plan to upgrade to 32GB in the future? If yes then get 1x16GB, if not then 2x8GB.

[bince]

2 minutes ago, heimdali said:

2x8 may be faster and may be an obstacle if you want to upgrade later.

 

doubt that 16 is gonna be needing an upgrade for a while.

[UltraNet]

2x8

[bince]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

 

Mr. Nitpick here: Dual channel operation doesn't make the RAM operate any faster, it increases the bandwidth available, which is different from RAM speed.

Thats what I meant, I just didn't phrase it too well.

[heimdali]

@bince:

I consider 32 minumum, more if you want to run VMs.

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, tjcater said:

Do you plan to upgrade to 32GB in the future? If yes then get 1x16GB, if not then 2x8GB.

That really depends on the board. If it has 4 DIMM slots (which most do), then 2 more 8GB stick can be added for 32GB. 

[heimdali]

5 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

 

Mr. Nitpick here: Dual channel operation doesn't make the RAM operate any faster, it increases the bandwidth available, which is different from RAM speed.

Right, I should have been more precise.  I thought everyone knows that.

 

[ATFink]

I recommend 2x8 so the memory runs in dual channel. If your motherboard can accept more than two sticks there is basically no reason not to go with 2x8 since the options are priced similarly.

 

The only time I would consider getting the 1x16 would be if I knew I needed more than 16 gb of ram, I planned to purchase a second 1x16 stick later when I had the money, and my motherboard could only support 2 sticks. All three of those criteria would have to be met for me to consider buying a 1x16.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

That really depends on the board. If it has 4 DIMM slots (which most do), then 2 more 8GB stick can be added for 32GB. 

Kept thinking of my laptop's two slots instead of a desktop board... Guess I'm too far down the laptop rabbit hole now (Main computer now.)

[heimdali]

2 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

That really depends on the board. If it has 4 DIMM slots (which most do), then 2 more 8GB stick can be added for 32GB. 

And then you´re stuck at 32 or buy 4x16 when upgrading ...

 

[ATFink]

4 minutes ago, heimdali said:

@bince:

I consider 32 minumum, more if you want to run VMs.

 

How on Earth can you justify 32 GB as the minimum? Seriously, I don't believe that. I'd say 8 GB would be minimum. What is your logic?

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, heimdali said:

And then you´re stuck at 32 or buy 4x16 when upgrading ...

 

If you need 64GB, yes. If you need 32GB, no. 

 

I still retain that it depends on the motherboard and use case, as stated in my first post. You could say "but what if you need 64GB?", but if OP is only playing games, that will never be needed. 

 

Need more info from OP before an answer can be given really. 

 

EDIT: If you go for 4x 16GB you're stuck at going for 4x 32GB when upgrading

[ATFink]

9 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

If you need 64GB, yes. If you need 32GB, no. 

 

I still retain that it depends on the motherboard and use case, as stated in my first post. You could say "but what if you need 64GB?", but if OP is only playing games, that will never be needed. 

 

Need more info from OP before an answer can be given really. 

 

EDIT: If you go for 4x 16GB you're stuck at going for 4x 32GB when upgrading

That... and very few people in a non commercial setting need 32 GB or more. More info would be needed on the use case of the computer, but 32 GB is usually very overkill for most people.

[bince]

17 minutes ago, heimdali said:

@bince:

I consider 32 minumum, more if you want to run VMs.

 

ah

[heimdali]

Just now, ATFink said:

How on Earth can you justify 32 GB as the minimum? Seriously, I don't believe that. I'd say 8 GB would be minimum. What is your logic?

It all depends on what you´re doing and on what you want.  Compile some (larger) software, and you do want to use all 24 CPUs without swapping.  Run some services, use ZFS, run VMs, edit images or videos and have a game running in the background you sometimes switch to, and you´ll be glad to have sufficient RAM.  Of course, I don´t want to have to stop anything when compiling.  Run a RDBMS and you may want to give it 32GB or more.

 

32GB really isn´t much.  A web browser easily uses 2GB.

 

It also doesn´t matter.  I buy used, so I get much more for my money than I ever would buying new.  Upgrading RAM later costs much more than buying it right away, and I don´t need to worry about the RAM being compatible or not.

 

I don´t understand those who buy new and spend a ton of money for only a few cores and tiny amounts of RAM.  The super high clocked CPU is sure nice for doing single threaded things faster, but when it comes to overall performance, I prefer more cores that are reasonably fast and having enough RAM so things don´t slow down because of a lack of it.

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, heimdali said:

I don´t understand those who buy new and spend a ton of money for only a few cores and tiny amounts of RAM.  The super high clocked CPU is sure nice for doing single threaded things faster, but when it comes to overall performance, I prefer more cores that are reasonably fast and having enough RAM so things don´t slow down because of a lack of it.

Well fewer stronger cores are better for consumers and most consumers don't demand alot of ram.

[heimdali]

21 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

If you need 64GB, yes. If you need 32GB, no. 

 

I still retain that it depends on the motherboard and use case, as stated in my first post. You could say "but what if you need 64GB?", but if OP is only playing games, that will never be needed. 

 

Need more info from OP before an answer can be given really. 

 

EDIT: If you go for 4x 16GB you're stuck at going for 4x 32GB when upgrading

Only if your hardware supports more than 64GB

 

The OP didn´t say what they have and what they´re planning to do, so there isn´t much that could be said.

 

[heimdali]

3 minutes ago, tjcater said:

Well fewer stronger cores are better for consumers and most consumers don't demand alot of ram.

That depends on what they´re doing.

 

If you do some web browsing, send some emails and do some text processing, you can get away with 1GB.  A $50 used computer may be more than sufficient for that.

 

[ATFink]

1 minute ago, heimdali said:

It all depends on what you´re doing and on what you want.  Compile some (larger) software, and you do want to use all 24 CPUs without swapping.  Run some services, use ZFS, run VMs, edit images or videos and have a game running in the background you sometimes switch to, and you´ll be glad to have sufficient RAM.  Of course, I don´t want to have to stop anything when compiling.  Run a RDBMS and you may want to give it 32GB or more.

 

32GB really isn´t much.  A web browser easily uses 2GB.

 

It also doesn´t matter.  I buy used, so I get much more for my money than I ever would buying new.  Upgrading RAM later costs much more than buying it right away, and I don´t need to worry about the RAM being compatible or not.

 

I don´t understand those who buy new and spend a ton of money for only a few cores and tiny amounts of RAM.  The super high clocked CPU is sure nice for doing single threaded things faster, but when it comes to overall performance, I prefer more cores that are reasonably fast and having enough RAM so things don´t slow down because of a lack of it.

 

I understand your logic, but I don't see why you would recommend a 32 GB minimum to your average joe. Very few people run enough simultaneous programs to use that much memory at any particular time ever. Obviously you do and it makes since in your case, I'm not doubting that you utilize the RAM, but most people don't come close to using 32 GB. That is why I thought 32 GB as a minimum spec was high. When I first built my computer in 2014 I tried to see how far I could push the original 16 GB I had and it was cable running 3 games (I don't remember the titles but I think two of the 3 titles were metro last light and Sid Meirs Civ V), a metric ton of google chrome tabs, and a few other various programs before the computer started to noticeably slow down.

 

Thank you for the information though. I appreciate the time you put into your response. I absolutely agree on buying used and having multiple cores to keep the computer operating smoothly regardless of what's running in the background.