2x8GB or 1x16GB

[heimdali]

One of the problems is that at the time you start thinking about upgrading what you have, you usually have to come to the conclusion that you would need a new CPU, thus a new board and new RAM because things aren´t compatible anymore.  Depending on what you start with, it may cost you large amounts of money to get something moderately faster and huge amounts for something significantly faster (if you can even get that), and what you can get for your money isn´t so much faster that it would be worthwhile.

 

Starting out with more RAM than you think you actually need can help a lot to get around this.  What you run out of first is usually graphics power and RAM.  A graphics card is easy to replace, and when you skip a generation or two in between, the new card you get then is truely amazing.  I´ve always been impressed with what progress they made with those and am somewhat disappointed with the little progress they´re making with CPUs.  So the next thing is RAM, and 32GB will probably not only go a long way, you will also use it right away, even if it´s only for disk cache and for the perhaps not so frequent case when you actually need it.  Of course, if you like spending your money on new computers, you might get a new one every so often that you never think about how long you will use the one you´re about to get.

 

When you get to the point where you´re unhappy with overall performance, a faster CPU (plus board and RAM) or more RAM alone probably doesn´t really solve the problem because you need hardware that is capable to deliver that kind of performance.  You´re then looking at something like a Z840 which costs about 15k, and 32GB is like a neglectable amount of RAM when you go that way.

 

The alternative is buying used.  That´s what I did, and it cost me less than half of buying new and gives me way more overall performance than I could have bought new.  If I´d buy new, I´d get 32GB rather than the 48 I have now.  If I´d buy used now, I´d go for at least 64GB, though 48 would be ok --- not because I currently really need that, but because there is no reason not to and because it´s rather expensive and can be difficult to upgrade later.  However, I don´t see myself buying new or used for the next years because I still have more performance than I need; if I do, it would just be for the fun of it (like I feel tempted to get an ML350 with two x5690s).

 

There´s also the question of quality and reliability.  I don´t want "consumer hardware" anymore because it neither has the quality, nor the reliability I got used to.  It´s like having to drive a box car made for kids from cardboard when I can have a Mercedes (a Maybach would be overdone to the point where it isn´t really fun anymore) for a quarter to half the price.  With some of it, there´s also features I need which the "consumer hardware" simply doesn´t have.

 

But I don´t know, perhaps if you need to play the latest games, you also need the latest CPU.  If you have that, why wouldn´t you also have 32GB RAM?  Or a console instead?