Yet Another 8gb vs 16gb Ram question - WITH A TWIST!

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tazzrats

tazzrats

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Nov 10, 2014
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Okay, I know we can argue gamers only need 8gb of ram until the cows come home, BUT can someone help me out here;

I think I need to move to 16gb, I am maxing out my RAM when playing cities skylines, and get surprisingly low fps (less than 30) and I am upscaling it to 4k on my 1080p monitor; but moving between this and standard 1080p DOES NOT AFFECT FPS. Ram usage stays the same! (so is ram my bottleneck?)

Furthermore GTAV seems to stutter ALOT and use ALOT of ram; and with me getting Fallout 4 I can only presume (despite it saying 8gb recommended) that another open world game may run smoother with 16gb?

If ANYONE has a clue if i will have a better experience with 16gb please let me know! :)
(I know my 6300 is a major bottleneck, my OC is keeping me going though and I do not see 100% cpu usage)

Specs:
AMD6300 [:(] @4.8ghz
GTX980
8GB Corsair vengence DDR3 @ 1866mhz
2 Samsung 850evo ssds for storage
 
Solution
Sakkura
@RCFProd: 8GB RAM can definitely bottleneck if your memory usage goes above that. Which depends on the OS and background processes, as well as eg. having a browser open in the background. And Cities Skylines isn't very graphically demanding, a GTX 980 should be fine at 4K (and as performance shows, it isn't GPU bottlenecked).

@tazzrats: Try and check actual memory usage while running these games. If it's going near or over 8GB, then more RAM could be a very nice upgrade.
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RCFProd

RCFProd

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Dec 8, 2013
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RAM usage doesn't increase because of a higher resolution. It's your VRAM usage (Graphics card memory usage) that increases. 8GB RAM is usually never the bottleneck and more isn't usually needed for gaming.

4k resolution is difficult. Your graphics card is intended to run like a beast at nothing over than 1440p resolution.
 
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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Aug 22, 2011
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Downsampling from 4K doesn't increase the system memory usage, it does increase the VRAM usage though; but presumably your GTX 980 has enough VRAM for that game. Cities Skyline isn't that graphically demanding.

So you're limited more by CPU or system memory, which is why changing to 1080p doesn't really affect performance.

You could try and look at CPU usage in task manager, which is at least a clue as to whether performance is being bottlenecked by the CPU. But it's not easy to tell.

Upgrading to 16GB could very well improve performance significantly, it's just that your FX-6300 won't perform perfectly in all games.
 
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tazzrats

tazzrats

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Nov 10, 2014
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Hrmm thanks for the replies! The whole 4k thingy I got there; and yeh sadly this 6300 is a pain, BUT it is never at 100%, but ram almost always is. In open world games will FPS be smoother, or even higher, with a little more RAM? :)
 
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Sakkura

Sakkura

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Aug 22, 2011
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@RCFProd: 8GB RAM can definitely bottleneck if your memory usage goes above that. Which depends on the OS and background processes, as well as eg. having a browser open in the background. And Cities Skylines isn't very graphically demanding, a GTX 980 should be fine at 4K (and as performance shows, it isn't GPU bottlenecked).

@tazzrats: Try and check actual memory usage while running these games. If it's going near or over 8GB, then more RAM could be a very nice upgrade.
 
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Solution
tazzrats

tazzrats

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Nov 10, 2014
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I didn't mean to click solution! BUT I think it is actually; so 16gb might be needed, cool. Ill have a look and try and see if I am maxing out in all my games; if I am I just have one more question, if (eg in gtav) I am maxed out and get 40-60 fps depedning on location. IF RAM is maxed out; will increasing to 16gb just smooth out the stutters, or with it bottlenecking will I actually see a maximum FPS increase too? Thanks so much for helping too :)

 
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tazzrats

tazzrats

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Nov 10, 2014
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Thank you! I think I will run afew benchmarks, try overclocking my cpu to 5ghz again, and monitor my ram, if ram is always at 100% during the stutters, new ram it is! Thanks :)

 
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