More ram or faster ram?

Solution
Considering the quality of the question, "More" is the generic solution. In most cases if an average PC is struggling due to RAM it is because there is not enough of it. Today when purchasing RAM one can have basic 2 options:
a) 16GB of RAM of generic type
b) 8 GB of much more expensive faster RAM

Of course other configs also exist but I would say this is most common current dilemma when facing faster RAM.

The faster RAM often does nothing in day to day work but 16GB will benefit more in the long term...
I went for 16Gb of faster RAM, but that is because I could afford to. If they asked me more or faster RAM, in general more is the answer.

8 Gigs is enough to run most games, but I see more and more issues creeping up when not having...

VJ_Gamer

Commendable
Aug 8, 2017
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The answer depends on your PC build(Motherboard, CPU).
If you want more ram, you’ll first need to find out how much ram your motherboard supports, channel support and what kind of ram it uses. And if you already have a ram and trying to upgrade then you have to match with the old ram.

And overall it ends up being very application dependent.

Peace.
 

Britney Amber

Prominent
May 21, 2017
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540
Generally more RAM is the better option but it depends...

Faster RAM has very little improvements in games...

For example,

DDR4-3200 is a viable option against say DDR4-2133

However,

upgrading from DDR4-3200 towards DDR4-3600 is not a feasible choice since the performance gains are negligible in realtime gaming apps.
 

gaborbarla

Distinguished
Considering the quality of the question, "More" is the generic solution. In most cases if an average PC is struggling due to RAM it is because there is not enough of it. Today when purchasing RAM one can have basic 2 options:
a) 16GB of RAM of generic type
b) 8 GB of much more expensive faster RAM

Of course other configs also exist but I would say this is most common current dilemma when facing faster RAM.

The faster RAM often does nothing in day to day work but 16GB will benefit more in the long term...
I went for 16Gb of faster RAM, but that is because I could afford to. If they asked me more or faster RAM, in general more is the answer.

8 Gigs is enough to run most games, but I see more and more issues creeping up when not having 16GB of RAM. 16Gb enables caching of programs, textures etc and will give generally greater benefit than half the amount of faster RAM in most situations. Of course one could find some borderline case when using photoshop where only little RAM is needed to render something (unlikely) where it would benefit more to get the faster version of the RAM. Good luck with that argument though.
 
Solution
If the programs or games are already struggeling of having not enough RAM: more RAM is highly appreciated.
If the programs or games are already having enough RAM: more RAM will not really add any benefit
16GB is the recommended standard for today's gaming rig.

Faster RAM has almost very little influence in games. Just find the sweet spot when buying RAM.


Buying RAM:
choose the needed capacity first and then pick the sweet spot (speed and price wise)
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador


That all depends on your hardware and what your doing with the PC.
If your only using 4GB when you have 8 then buying more will do nothing. Faster would help with some programs and with some processors.