4GB vs 8GB Ultra settings high res gaming

[nrnx]

Now that a few years have gone by I am wondering what the standard is for high-end gaming. I am just waiting on the last few sticks of my ram to arrive to put me at 8gb, but was wondering - for this generation of gaming is 8gb the new 4gb?

 

[notty22]

No, not really. But I guess if you have a lot of open applications when you game, running in background it surely won't hurt.

 

[paperfox]

Earlyer last year toms had an artice saying that 3 was the optimal amount, I think 4 GB is still enough for gaming these days maybe next year 8 will come into play.

Edit: found the artice
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264.html

 

[nrnx]

Ah well, I guess I am good at least to have utorrent, some decoders etc running in the background now while I game. I was hoping for a resounding "Yes" that games now actually used more memory with less compressed textures. Sadly that doesn't seem to be the case

 

[jyjjy]

Well it's more the card's onboard memory that would matter for textures anyway.

 

[Aneesh@4GHz]

If u r doing programing or others on background,U will need 8gb,Otherwise 4 gb is ok!

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

It makes absolutely no difference in gaming.

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

No, not really. But I guess if you have a lot of open applications when you game, running in background it surely won't hurt.

If he has a lot of open apps running while gaming, then I'd be a heck alot more worried about CPU slowdown than shortage of RAM, hands down.

 

[bhagat666]

so 4gb is sufficient for now rite ???

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

Can you read?

 

[Kewlx25]

tripple channel DDR3 6GB(2GBx3) is the new standard for the most part. Not that you need 6GB, but that 2GB barely costs more than 1GB and mind-as-well use your tripple channel memory.

Bad Company 2 uses about 600MB of my 4GB of ram. Even with a crap ton of programs in the back-ground, I have about 2GB-1GB free while playing.

 

[MARSOC_Operator]

tripple channel DDR3 6GB(2GBx3) is the new standard for the most part. Not that you need 6GB, but that 2GB barely costs more than 1GB and mind-as-well use your tripple channel memory.

Bad Company 2 uses about 600MB of my 4GB of ram. Even with a crap ton of programs in the back-ground, I have about 2GB-1GB free while playing.

Which standard is that? Only the very top of the line Intel i5 and i7 CPUs can make good use of triple channel RAM, so how can you affirm that this is a new standard? Olny if you are talking about extreme PC blogs/magazines and websites and such. Because outside of this little enthusiast niche, 6GB of triple channel RAM is HARDLY any sort of standard. Heck, I'm yet to see any kind of game or domestic application which can be bottlenecked by 4GB of DDR2 1066Ghz RAM.

Having 6, 8 or 12GB of RAM only for gaming, is like having 4x5970 GPUs crossfired to run games at 1280x1024. A pure waste of money, space and power.

 

[jyjjy]

Which standard is that? Only the very top of the line Intel i5 and i7 CPUs can make good use of triple channel RAM

Not even. i5s aren't triple channel. Only LGA1366 i7 chips can use it.

 

[Kewlx25]

Which standard is that? Only the very top of the line Intel i5 and i7 CPUs can make good use of triple channel RAM, so how can you affirm that this is a new standard? Olny if you are talking about extreme PC blogs/magazines and websites and such. Because outside of this little enthusiast niche, 6GB of triple channel RAM is HARDLY any sort of standard. Heck, I'm yet to see any kind of game or domestic application which can be bottlenecked by 4GB of DDR2 1066Ghz RAM.

Having 6, 8 or 12GB of RAM only for gaming, is like having 4x5970 GPUs crossfired to run games at 1280x1024. A pure waste of money, space and power.

because it costs $50 for 2GB of ram. One week of gas for my cars costs more than that. Who wouldn't pay the extra $50 to go from 4GB to 6GB when you have a spare slot open?

 

[-Fran-]

If you don't plan on going for a MoBo change anytime soon, 8GB will last you a long long time.

I got 2GB DDR1-400 like 5 years ago and don't regret it. I can game all I want on my dear Athlon64 X2 (nF4, s939, Toledo FTW) @2.53Ghz and a 4890 (yeah, it's bottlenecked, but I still game over 60 FPS'es @1280x1024, lol).

Cheers!

 

[bystander]

I have run into memory issues with one game, and one game only with 6 GB of ram. Although I could work around it, it would be nice not to. I haven't tried using 3 GB to know if I'd have issues with that or not, but I'd rather not try.

The problem I have had with 6GB of ram is a result of playing Crysis with Aero on. If I turn off Aero, then I don't have an issue. I imagine 3GB of ram would give me more issues.

One other thing I've noticed for years is that if you have more than the minimum needed ram to run games well, you can enjoy games that have memory leaks. It takes a lot more time for those memory leaks to soak up the extra ram.

 

[jyjjy]

I really doubt that was a ram issue.

 

[bystander]

I really doubt that was a ram issue.

The warning message I got while playing Crysis was something close to the following: "Windows has run low on RAM, please turn off Aero to resolve the issue".

It could be Crysis has memory leak that caused it, but I was low on RAM while using Crysis, and was asked to turn off Aero to resolve it.

 

[paperfox]

Ya ram prices have come up alot in the last 6 months, I remember getting two sets of 2x2gb ddr2 800mhz sticks for only $30 at frys (after mir, before tax), thats $7.50 per GB! Now its like $60 for the same set at frys, newegg is even more expensive at ~$75. Prices should come down in the summer months again like it always dose. (the cheap corsair xms2 kind, not the best timings or voltages but it gets the job done for my older c2d computers)