Do I need a RAM upgrade?

KyBr14 · Jan 1, 2014

I'm going to be upgrading my computer soon. I plan on picking up a new processor, motherboard and GPU. I'm not sure if I should be upgrading my RAM as well. I'll be picking up:

CPU: i5 4670
Mobo: Asrock extreme 4 or msi g45 gaming

I currently have (4) 4gb DDR3 1600 which I'm considering salvaging from my old computer. If I were to upgrade my RAM as well my budget would be about $150. What sort of performance boost would I see and is it worth the money?

Rocketninja16 · Jan 1, 2014

KyBr14 :

You'll get a lot of opinions but generally, you'd be well served to upgrade to 8 gigs. If you want to future proof, go with 16 but unless you're doing a lot of video or photoshop editing 8 is plenty.

As far as performance, you'll see smoother operation in general, and smoother/better gaming. With bigger RAM the O/S doesn't need to use the page file on the HDD or SSD to swap stuff in and out of while you're multi tasking/switching windows etc...

I took the plunge about a year ago to 8 gigs and it's been great.

Edit: Forgot to mention that if you're going to overclock at all, a base clock on your ram of 1600 to 1866 is kind of the sweet spot for most setups. The faster RAM is nice, but it doesn't seem to affect it much, and you want the headroom if you're going to overclock.

Again you'll get a lot of different opinions on this but the G skill Ripjaw series seems to get the highest ratings consistently.

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Do I need a RAM upgrade?

KyBr14

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Rocketninja16

Rocketninja16

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