Memory price vs performance

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carssuckjeepsrule

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Based on current costs which have doubled RAM prices (8gb 1333 late 2012 was $40!) would it be smarter to get 4gb (2x2) of 1600 memory, 8gb (2x4) of 1333, or man up and get the 8gb (2x4) of 1600 at $85?
Basically, much like the system builder price/performance scale, is there a chart or something where I can see the point of diminishing returns?
I have 4gb (2x4) 1600 in my current machine and never had issues.

What's the performance match up of more RAM vs faster RAM for a typical web surfing, mild gaming machine?
Thank you.
 
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JackNaylorPE
The charts showing how much you gain are in the tomshardware link above

x64_gamimg.png


x64_cs4.png
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yanis31

yanis31

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i think 1600 cl9 is still the price/performance option to get...
some new games will stutter if you dont have 8 gigs in your system - battlefield 4 for example is horrible on 4 gigs... upgrade to 8 and the stutter disappears completely
i found corsair's 1.5 volt 1866 cl9 vengeance LP for just a tiny bit more than kingston's Hyperx PnP 1.5volt 1600 cl9 .. so i went with it
but some benchmarks actually suggest i had a tiny bit better memory performance with 4 gigs kingston hyperx genesis 1.65volt 1600/cl9 on my FX6350 cpu so it's hard to say...
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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In General, programs that benefit from HT, also benefit from fast RAM / Low CAS (Video / photo editing, CAD, etc). In gaming, it's very variable, averaging about 2-5%, but can be greater than 10% (F1, STALKER) going from 1600 to 2400

RAM speed is oft looked at in a rather silly manner in that reviewers will often compare the cost of the RAM versus the performance increase of the entire system. 8GB of CAS 9 1600, is about $85..... 1833 $80 and 2133 $100 .... DDR3-2400 CAS10 is the smart buy at $87

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/32-gb-ddr3-ram,3790-10.html

So while it's true that the % increase in performance is relatively small, that can't go w/o saying that the % increase in cost is much much smaller.

On a $1200 box, let's say the more expensive memory is $15 more.... that's a price increase of just 1.025%,

Lets look at actual Speed

DDR3-2400 CAS 10 = 10 x 1000 / 2400 = 4.17 nanoseconds
DDR3-1600 CAS 9 = 9 x 1000 / 1600 = 5.63

The the DDR3-1600 is 35% slower.... your system will not be able to take advantage of it on web browsing and simple office apps. Again, large databases or spreadsheet manipulation, CAD, GFX editing will see a significant boost and most games will be in low - mid single digits ..... but for $2 extra, it's a no brainer.
 
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carssuckjeepsrule

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Good stuff guys...and since 8gb of 1333 is so close to 1600, we can toss that idea.
So the simple question becomes:
Is 8gb worth the double price premium of 4g?.
Late 2012, built a kid a college machine. 8gb of 1333 Kingston was 39.99. Now that's the cost of a 4 gb kit. Fun! ha.
With a new system and only two slots, probably going to have to accept the ouch factor of $85 for 8 gb of RAM.
 
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yanis31

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besides a few new games with 64bit engines (meaning they actually are able to use more than ~3.5 gigs of ram) 4 gigs is still fine, battlefield 4 and i believe "thief" both suck with 4 gigs.. maybe there were others but honestly most of the new games will be like this so get 8
in windows there will be a tiny performance difference if you multitask alot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrrTkbyjDHk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG8HoewIO_s
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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I wouldn't pay much attention to Mr. 2 cents ..... he tends to get things very wrong .... a lot.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/32-gb-ddr3-ram,3790-10.html

Memory performance has always been a bottleneck in F1 2012, particularly at low resolutions using entry-level quality settings. Of course, that'd be unrealistically light for the hardware we're using. Choosing the lowest-acceptable settings for my high-end test platform, frame rates vary from 159 FPS at DDR3-1600 CAS 9 to 177 FPS at DDR3-2400 CAS 11.
Click to expand...

That's 11.3%

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-8.html

That's 8% in photoshop, 6% in GTA, 35% in HL

 
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yanis31

yanis31

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well yes jayz2cents is kinda going for a simplified version of most things... but he makes alot of sense too
i think the main point in that video was to show that a bit of cpu overclock will yield much better performance increase...
in gta4 i got a 1fps increase in the built in benchmark by going from 1866 to 2000mhz .. and it was repeatable every single time,
lower latency didnt improve anything in it... mhz was what mattered
cinebench r15 liked lower latency instead of higher mhz
still - all of these charts show a pretty negligible difference which won't mean much on a budget build...
the photoshop results seem to be the only ones with some real world benefit
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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The problem is that the biggest impact in memory is too often ignored......

Where fast memory has the most impact is:

A. Minimum Frame rates ..... this is the most annoying part, it's those points in game where ya drop to 32 fps not the average fps of 49 that is most significant

B. Multi card performance..... single card performance might be the bottleneck but double up the cards and now memory can be the bottleneck

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2792/12

22.3 % (SLI) increase in minimum frame rates w/ C6 instead of C8 in Far Cry 2
18% (single card) / 5% (SLI) increase in minimum frame rates w/ C6 instead of C8 in Dawn of War
15% (single card) / 5% (SLI) increase in minimum frame rates w/ C6 instead of C8 in World in Conflict

Also see http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2011/01/11/the-best-memory-for-sandy-bridge/1

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6372/memory-performance-16gb-ddr31333-to-ddr32400-on-ivy-bridge-igp-with-gskill/14

They went all out trying to put as much burden as possible so only 1-2 fps but 1 fps is 5%



 
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yanis31

yanis31

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for integrated graphics cards that borrow system ram -> 100% go for faster ram... AMD APU's especially

for system... meh .. gotta remember that not all cpu's support high frequencies and when overclocking cpu to the limit you most likely will
have to reduce ram speed to keep the cpu stable, so again... not such a big advantage
i took the 1866 cas 9 kit since it's the max officially supported speed of my FX cpu... and my motherboard officially supports up to 2000
so atleast i know im safe...
 
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carssuckjeepsrule

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Good info folks, but maybe I should elaborate on the system to keep the target more in focus.
It's a new budget machine with a Pentium 3258 (cheap but fun budget overclocker) and a 7770 video card, mainstream SSD going into a small Coolermaster 130 case. One video card slot, only two RAM slots. No crazy high end Titan cards here...life happens.
So the basic question is: 4gb or 8gb?
Kinda leaning towards 8. Everything is cheap but with two slots might as well get 8gb 1600 and be done, but like in the original post, I was curious if there some chart showing the point of diminishing returns on money spent.
 
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yanis31

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and my final words -
2014 has moved way more in the 8gb direction than this chart too...
most notable example is battlefield4 that i mentioned - it really stutters like crazy with 4 gigs of ram.. atleast on max settings - it's almost unbearable, i am speaking with confidence that it's 100% ram fault because i upgraded to 8gb in the same pc without changing anything else and the problem disappeared without a trace.
 
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carssuckjeepsrule

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You are correct sir. I don't see Battlefield 4 in my future, but the article is very good at pointing out that although 4 GB is perfectly fine, the overhead 8gb affords is recommended. I won't say games will get more intense (my step son plays Minecraft....looks like it came from 1989) but I will say that 4GB would probably be a mistake in a machine that only has two slots. If I had a four slot motherboard....I'd rock 4gb memory and toss the $45 buck savings at video and look to ad the other 4gb in the future.
 
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