4gb vs 8gb Gaming Performance in APU

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lhuigi

lhuigi

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Nov 23, 2013
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I currently have this system:

A8-6600K
Gigabyte F2-A88XM-HD3
4gb of Kinston KVR1333D3N9/4G overclocked to 1866mhz
Corsair VS 450

It is worth to buy and add another 4gb of the same ram? Will that boost my fps in games Im playing like Battlefield 3, Assasins Creed IV Black Flag, Tomb Raider 2013?
 
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photonboy


Good point.
I forget to ask if he has 2x2GB or 1x4GB. His board only has two slots. If he's running 1x4GB he's got a slight bottleneck to the GPU. If he's running 2x2GB it's probably not too bad but he'd have to replace both sticks with 2x4GB.

That's also a really high overclock on the memory which makes me nervous for long-term reliability as it's rated at 1333MHz. Overclocking wouldn't be needed necessarily with an addon video card since it uses its own video memory.

My advice is update to 8GB using identical sticks (see pcpartpicker) but seriously consider a better graphics card that has 2GB or more (R7-260X or better) or playing the games...
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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You won't necessarily see an overall frame rate boost, however it's likely you are running out of memory. When that happens your frame rate does tend to plummet.

Your APU is sharing some of the memory as well so if you have 1GB assigned there you've got about 2.8GB left for Windows and for the game so you're almost certainly low.

So yes, go get an identical stick through pcpartpicker or wherever. Make sure you have 64-bit Windows.

Other:
The GPU in your APU (APU is CPU + GPU) isn't as good as an HD6670 so you'd get a huge benefit with a dedicated video card.
 
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S

Stefan Petrovic

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Sep 10, 2014
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In my honest opinion it would benefit because integrated GPU shares ram with CPU but i didn't have the chance to test that myself....i recommend you ask one of your friends to borrow 8gb ram (ofc is some has it or its willing to help you :) ) and test it for yourself
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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Good point.
I forget to ask if he has 2x2GB or 1x4GB. His board only has two slots. If he's running 1x4GB he's got a slight bottleneck to the GPU. If he's running 2x2GB it's probably not too bad but he'd have to replace both sticks with 2x4GB.

That's also a really high overclock on the memory which makes me nervous for long-term reliability as it's rated at 1333MHz. Overclocking wouldn't be needed necessarily with an addon video card since it uses its own video memory.

My advice is update to 8GB using identical sticks (see pcpartpicker) but seriously consider a better graphics card that has 2GB or more (R7-260X or better) or playing the games listed might not be very fun.

THIS card is about $100 (after $20 MIR) but you can choose TWO GAMES from a list.
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-1003662l
 
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lhuigi

lhuigi

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Nov 23, 2013
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Actually there is a big boost in fps! Thank you very much. For those who are in doubt of upgrading their RAM from 4gb to 8gb, do it now.

The results: (Battlefied 3)

Using 4gb only:
24-30fps on Low Settings All AA off @ 1280x720

Using 8gb:
55-60fps on Low Settings All AA off @ 1280x720
48-52fps on Low Settings All AA off @ 1600x900
34-43fps on Medium Settings @ 1280x720
28-32fps on High Settings @ 1280x720
18-22fps on Ultra @ 1600x900
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
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Great.
However, it's hard to say where the most benefit is coming from as you were both low on memory for a game like BF3 and also starving your GPU by having only single channel.

Hmm... note that your performance at the same settings basically DOUBLES. Since you doubled your bandwidth that's likely the main reason for the average frame rate increase.

I suspect the increase in memory amount is helping as well with stutter. Probably why your minimum jumped more than double but it's hard to test accurately.
 
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