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Diminishing returns with higher amount of ram?

Tags:
  • 8gb ram
  • Gaming
  • Chrome
  • RAM
  • Laptops
  • 6gb ram
Last response: in Memory
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a b 4 Gaming
September 18, 2014 5:37:08 AM

A little backstory...For example, on my older laptop that only had 3gb of ddr2 ram, I'd have regular programs open like chrome with several tabs,winamp,steam,skype and not have much usage at all,not much above 1gb used. Maybe 1.5gb total. The OS on it was Windows 7 64bit, although ironically, the mobo's max amount of ram it would support was only 4gb total.


On my current laptop with 6gb ram installed ddr3 1600mhz (although at slower 11-11-11-28 timings) with Windows 8.1 64bit installed. Last I looked the max ram for the laptop was 8gb. People claimed they used 16gb before but I'm skeptical. Anyway, I have much higher ram usage with just chrome with not many tabs open, steam, winamp,skype. I'm wondering if upgrading to 8gb would be worth it to give some breathing room while gaming.


It was easier to see what was cached in windows 7 but windows 8 task manager confuses me. I've heard before that the more ram you add to windows it just uses more in turn.


So in a nutshell, stated more simply, is it worth it upgrading my laptop from 6gb to 8gb ram? Years ago, and even now, I see people with those old school 1st gen i7 920 cpu based gaming PCs and stuff with "only" 6gb ram total and it was apparently plenty good back then and apparently still good now. I just have high ram usage in windows 8.1, and, I fear the laptop will lock up when gaming since that'll eat up 2gb or more per game right there.

right now mine says, In Use: 3.5gb, 1.9gb available and for Committed 4.7gb/11.4gb Cached: 1.6gb

I technically only have 5.5gb total ram, since, 500mb of ram is dedicated to my APU's GPU portion.

More about : diminishing returns higher amount ram

a b 4 Gaming
a b D Laptop
September 18, 2014 5:56:50 AM

it should be enough you must have some xtra processes
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a b 4 Gaming
a b D Laptop
September 18, 2014 8:12:18 AM

My advice is to see what is taking up so much ram rather than simply upgrading it. For example if you notice that you anti virus is taking up a lot of ram, switch to a lighter version of it. Another thing you can do is clean the cache as this will give it more space on the disk for you laptop to use for page files. Also it is quite common for win 8.1 to take a lot of ram. older versions took less ram which meant that 6gigs was more than what was needed. 6 gigs should be enough for win 8 and only upgrade to 8 if you are planning to play intensive games.

Otherwise try what I said above and get back to me
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