Cannot decide if buying 16 GB DDR3 ram was a mistake.

[Dingo24]

Hello.

I am considering refunding 2 Ballistix Tactical 16GB DDR3 8GBx2 cl8 1600 240 pin. The reason is that i dont think that the price (approximately 120$) is well used by buying ram to the following PC build? (Sorry for my English)

Intel Core i3-4170, Socket-LGA1150
Processor, Dual Core, 3.7GHz, 3MB, 54W, 22nm, HD4400,

MSI B85M-E45, Socket-1150
m-ATX, B85, DDR3, 1xPCIe-x16, USB 3.0, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Haswell,

Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 4GB
4GB kit (2GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 Unbuffered UDIMM 240pin,

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, DL-DVI-D, HDMI, VGA (D-Sub)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5" OEM
SATA3.0, 7mm, 450MB/450MB/s read/write, SandForce®.

Seagate Barracuda® 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5"

Cooler Master B500 VER.2, 500W PSU
ATX 12V V2.3, Standard, 1x 4+4 CPU, 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 6x SATA, 3x Molex, 1x FD.

 

[DSzymborski]

A little on the high side. Assuming you're in the US (you don't specify), $90-$105 or so is a more typical price for 16 GB of DDR3 RAM these days. The question of course is whether you need 16 GB or would have been fine with 8.

 

[maxalge]

Hello.

I am considering refunding 2 Ballistix Tactical 16GB DDR3 8GBx2 cl8 1600 240 pin. The reason is that i dont think that the price (approximately 120$) is well used by buying ram to the following PC build? (Sorry for my English)

Intel Core i3-4170, Socket-LGA1150
Processor, Dual Core, 3.7GHz, 3MB, 54W, 22nm, HD4400,

MSI B85M-E45, Socket-1150
m-ATX, B85, DDR3, 1xPCIe-x16, USB 3.0, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Haswell,

Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 4GB
4GB kit (2GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 Unbuffered UDIMM 240pin,

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, DL-DVI-D, HDMI, VGA (D-Sub)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5" OEM
SATA3.0, 7mm, 450MB/450MB/s read/write, SandForce®.

Seagate Barracuda® 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5"

Cooler Master B500 VER.2, 500W PSU
ATX 12V V2.3, Standard, 1x 4+4 CPU, 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 6x SATA, 3x Molex, 1x FD.

return it, get a matching 4gb stick to what you currently have for 8gb total

 

[Dingo24]

A little on the high side. Assuming you're in the US (you don't specify), $90-$105 or so is a more typical price for 16 GB of DDR3 RAM these days. The question of course is whether you need 16 GB or would have been fine with 8.

From Denmark
8GB would probably have been fine. I only use the build for gaming. I just feel like the money is better spent in building a new build? The motherboard is limeted to DDR3(1600) and a CPU(1150-socket). This mean that I sooner or later have to spend money investing in a new build?

 

[Dingo24]

Hello.

I am considering refunding 2 Ballistix Tactical 16GB DDR3 8GBx2 cl8 1600 240 pin. The reason is that i dont think that the price (approximately 120$) is well used by buying ram to the following PC build? (Sorry for my English)

Intel Core i3-4170, Socket-LGA1150
Processor, Dual Core, 3.7GHz, 3MB, 54W, 22nm, HD4400,

MSI B85M-E45, Socket-1150
m-ATX, B85, DDR3, 1xPCIe-x16, USB 3.0, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Haswell,

Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 4GB
4GB kit (2GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 Unbuffered UDIMM 240pin,

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, DL-DVI-D, HDMI, VGA (D-Sub)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5" OEM
SATA3.0, 7mm, 450MB/450MB/s read/write, SandForce®.

Seagate Barracuda® 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5"

Cooler Master B500 VER.2, 500W PSU
ATX 12V V2.3, Standard, 1x 4+4 CPU, 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 6x SATA, 3x Molex, 1x FD.

return it, get a matching 4gb stick to what you currently have for 8gb total

I have in the past considered adding a 4 gb stick. The problem is that my current ram is 2x2gb, which means that I would lose the dual channel advantage and a lot of errors can occur combining different sizes of ram?

 

[DSzymborski]

Hello.

I am considering refunding 2 Ballistix Tactical 16GB DDR3 8GBx2 cl8 1600 240 pin. The reason is that i dont think that the price (approximately 120$) is well used by buying ram to the following PC build? (Sorry for my English)

Intel Core i3-4170, Socket-LGA1150
Processor, Dual Core, 3.7GHz, 3MB, 54W, 22nm, HD4400,

MSI B85M-E45, Socket-1150
m-ATX, B85, DDR3, 1xPCIe-x16, USB 3.0, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Haswell,

Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 4GB
4GB kit (2GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 Unbuffered UDIMM 240pin,

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, DL-DVI-D, HDMI, VGA (D-Sub)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5" OEM
SATA3.0, 7mm, 450MB/450MB/s read/write, SandForce®.

Seagate Barracuda® 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5"

Cooler Master B500 VER.2, 500W PSU
ATX 12V V2.3, Standard, 1x 4+4 CPU, 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 6x SATA, 3x Molex, 1x FD.

return it, get a matching 4gb stick to what you currently have for 8gb total

I have in the past considered adding a 4 gb stick. The problem is that my current ram is 2x2gb, which means that I would lose the dual channel advantage and a lot of errors can occur combining different sizes of ram?

Matching RAM can be awkward. If you're not able to do things now that you would with more RAM, a 2x4 set isn't expensive enough to take a chunk out of a future build budget. I don't think you're in new build territory, you can always get a 3770 on this motherboard and update the GPU and PSU without needing a whole new rig.

 

[Dingo24]

Hello.

I am considering refunding 2 Ballistix Tactical 16GB DDR3 8GBx2 cl8 1600 240 pin. The reason is that i dont think that the price (approximately 120$) is well used by buying ram to the following PC build? (Sorry for my English)

Intel Core i3-4170, Socket-LGA1150
Processor, Dual Core, 3.7GHz, 3MB, 54W, 22nm, HD4400,

MSI B85M-E45, Socket-1150
m-ATX, B85, DDR3, 1xPCIe-x16, USB 3.0, VGA, DVI, HDMI, Haswell,

Crucial DDR3 1600MHz 4GB
4GB kit (2GBx2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 Unbuffered UDIMM 240pin,

MSI GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB PhysX CUDA
PCI-Express 3.0, DL-DVI-D, HDMI, VGA (D-Sub)

Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5" OEM
SATA3.0, 7mm, 450MB/450MB/s read/write, SandForce®.

Seagate Barracuda® 1TB
SATA 6Gb/s (SATA 3.0), 64MB Cache, 7200RPM, 3.5"

Cooler Master B500 VER.2, 500W PSU
ATX 12V V2.3, Standard, 1x 4+4 CPU, 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 6x SATA, 3x Molex, 1x FD.

return it, get a matching 4gb stick to what you currently have for 8gb total

I have in the past considered adding a 4 gb stick. The problem is that my current ram is 2x2gb, which means that I would lose the dual channel advantage and a lot of errors can occur combining different sizes of ram?

Matching RAM can be awkward. If you're not able to do things now that you would with more RAM, a 2x4 set isn't expensive enough to take a chunk out of a future build budget. I don't think you're in new build territory, you can always get a 3770 on this motherboard and update the GPU and PSU without needing a whole new rig.

Good points