Will Upgrading Ram Help FX 6300 Perform Better?

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tytheguy42

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Jan 21, 2014
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After many hours of research as to why my FX 6300 seems to be such a bottleneck, I have come across a possible solution. Apparently, FX CPUs perform much better with faster ram, preferably dual channel ram, and I only have a single stick of 1600 MHz ram. Would upgrading to dual channel 1600 MHz ram significantly improve performance in games? If not, should I upgrade to Intel now, wait for Broadwell, or wait for Skylake? Thanks in advance.

My rig is:
FX 6300 CPU (Stock)
EVGA GTX 970 SC GPU
ASrock 990fx Extreme3 MOBO
8 GB 1600 mhz RAM (Single Channel)
1 TB WD HDD
 
Solution
photonboy
The above is correct.

If your DDR3 memory is a bottleneck to the CPU which isn't certain and depends on the game then getting another stick for dual-channel may help a bit.

However, your CPU definitely will be a bottleneck to the GTX970 in most games. I'll say that again... MOST GAMES because it varies significantly between games.

In SKYRIM (vanilla) you'd maybe get 50% higher frame rate with a good i5-4xxx CPU and the same GTX970. In BF4 you'd have less of a bottleneck so a better CPU would make less of a difference.

Recommendations:

1) Get an identical stick of memory (see pcpartpicker to search for same model) or get the same frequency and CAS (i.e. 1600MHz CAS9 if that's the case)

2)
a) TWEAK games for best experience now...
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TechyInAZ

TechyInAZ

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You have two bottlenecks:

1. Except for older/less demanding games, fx 6300 will bottleneck that graphics card.
2. RAM, you are right on this, using single channel memory will slow your system down so getting another stick will help.

I would suggest upgrading to intel now, because skylate is only going to have 10-15% better performance.
 
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mdocod

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Rank Interleave and Channel interleave are each good for anywhere from nill to ~10% performance in real world workloads.

Many builds with a 2x4GB kit have channel interleave but no rank interleave.
You have rank interleave with no channel interleave.

By adding another (hopefully identical) 8GB DIMM, you'll have both rank and channel interleave, which is ideal, but isn't going to be earth shattering compared to where you are at now.
 
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photonboy

photonboy

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The above is correct.

If your DDR3 memory is a bottleneck to the CPU which isn't certain and depends on the game then getting another stick for dual-channel may help a bit.

However, your CPU definitely will be a bottleneck to the GTX970 in most games. I'll say that again... MOST GAMES because it varies significantly between games.

In SKYRIM (vanilla) you'd maybe get 50% higher frame rate with a good i5-4xxx CPU and the same GTX970. In BF4 you'd have less of a bottleneck so a better CPU would make less of a difference.

Recommendations:

1) Get an identical stick of memory (see pcpartpicker to search for same model) or get the same frequency and CAS (i.e. 1600MHz CAS9 if that's the case)

2)
a) TWEAK games for best experience now (i.e. use Adaptive VSYNC perhaps and tweak to maintain 60FPS 90% of the time), or

b) Invest in the guts of a new system. Such as an i5-4690K + Asus Z97-A mobo + Windows 8.1 64-bit

*Despite the bottleneck many games will still run great and some will even max out so it's going to depend a lot on the games you are playing. If you want 60FPS and max settings and find you're in the 40 to 50FPS range you will want to upgrade.

WAIT?
There's no need to wait. First of all it's good to reuse your DDR3 memory and DDR4 is more expensive (and no benefit). If you are however fairly happy with your current gaming experience then do wait.
 
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Solution
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tytheguy42

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Jan 21, 2014
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Thanks for all the quick replies!
If I end up upgrading my RAM, I already have the newegg page for the same exact model bookmarked. I feel like if what happened here, http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1965286/8350-bottlenecking-gtx-780-normal.html is happening to me, then the RAM upgrade would be well worth it. The thing is though, I'm not entirely sure if my FX 6300 will benefit as much as this guy's FX 8350. Can anyone confirm if faster RAM benefits AMD CPUs as dramatically as people are saying?
Also, Battlefield 4 is one of the games that I'm actually having a problem with. On maps like Zavod 311 and Hainan Resort, I only get around 40 fps, and my cpu usage NEVER reaches 100% on any cores. This convinces me further that the RAM is the bottleneck.
 
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mdocod

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Think of it this way...

An 18 core Haswell E5-2699V3 uses quad channel 2133MT/s DDR4.

The raw combined execution power of all those haswell cores at is approximately equivalent to 5 X FX-6300s.

The approximate bandwidth of quad channel 2133MT/s DDR4 is approximately equivalent to 5 X that of a single channel of DDR3 at 1600MT/s.

I've heard rumors that Broadwell will probably bring 24 or more cores to that same 2011-3 socket, same quad channel memory configuration.

------------------

Do you still think your single channel of memory is a major bottleneck?

It's possible, but I'm thinking unlikely. If you would like to have 16GB of RAM anyway, then it might be worth ruling out that as the problem by upgrading, but if it doesn't fix it don't be surprised.
 
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st3v30

st3v30

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1st try to overclock your CPU to see will it help your fps,if you dont see improvement then sell those AMD parts and go Intel.I run my FX on stock cooler on 4 ghz and it performs better then stock with Turbo Core.Turbo Core make it just act funny disable that turbo option in bios and light oc to 4.0 might help you out a bit.IF you see better performance then get good cooling and keep him pushing more,you have good mobo for OC so you dont have to worry about it and i hope you have good PSU.
 
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tytheguy42

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Jan 21, 2014
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The reason I think that single channel memory is a bottleneck is because I have read that FX CPUs perform much better with faster memory. Someone with an FX 8350 was only getting around 40 fps in BF4, but once he upgraded to dual channel RAM, he said his fps increased 80% across the board. Also, I can't overclock, as I'm worried that my CPU cant take the heat, and my MOBO can't handle the overclock. Also, I doubt that a 500 MHz overclock would solve my problems, if anything, I would just have FX 6350 level performance.
 
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tytheguy42

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Jan 21, 2014
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I might try that in that future, but that still won't help very much with the bottleneck. Do you know if adding dual channel ram helps more with FX CPUs than with others, because if not, I'm just going to upgrade to intel. Thanks for helping.
 
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st3v30

st3v30

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I dont know anything about that,I did read some review about single vs dual and difference in gaming was about 1-2% .Juts Google around i think you will find something.
 
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