Do I really need 16 Gigs of RAM?

Hey, guys.

I'm building a custom PC and I can't decided whether I need 8 GB of RAM or 16 GB. I'm currently on a laptop with 4 GB of RAM and I've never done any photo or video editing on it. But I'm planning of getting hooked with video-editing software and game development. So my new PC won't be for gaming alone.

1. So do I really need 16 GB RAM or will 8 GB suffice?

2. If 8 GB, then do I get 2x4GB or 1x8GB? If 16 GB, then 4x4GB or 2x8GB?

3. Which RAM (8GB and 16GB) is the best for the price (around $60 or $120)?

4. Is 1866MHz really an advantage over 1600MHz and is it worth the extra dollars?

5. Finally, I've seen that Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866MHz is only $5 more expensive than the Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz RAM. Why is it so?

6. Another thing I noticed is that this Corsair Vengenace Pro is 1600MHz but it is more expensive than the Pro 1866MHz version. How's that possible?

Please try to answer each question separately. Thanks.

For video editing, you want 16gb of ram. For game development, in most cases you really don't.

1600mhz is fine, 1866 is just slightly faster. You won't notice a different.

For video editing 16GB, gaming requires 8GB.

Yes, get at least 16GB if you are doing video editing.

1. Generally 8GB would be enough, but if you want to do some editing 16GB might be required.

2. If you plan to go with 8GB RAM, I would suggest go with the 2x4GB RAM root because of some RAM sticks and motherboard may cause problems if they are not the same kit. So unless you plan on buying a big cooler that covers a slot in your RAM, I suggest go with 2x4GB RAM.

3. This might change per day. Every day the stores are making offers so... I would choose corsair's and gskill's RAMs over the rest.

4. It really wouldn't make a huge difference (depending on what you are doing...) but if the price difference is small... I bought Corsair Vengeance Pro 2133 RAM (Read: 32GB/s, Write: 33GB/s, Copy: 31GB/s) for just $10 extra...

5. Like I said before, this depends on the offers that stores are making.

6. Same like 5.

Okay, so that was a lot of help. Now some more questions.

7. Why does video editing need so much RAM?

8. Won't future games need more than 8GB RAM? 6-8GB is currently the recommended standard. It's bound to change, isn't it?

9. If I buy 8GB now (2x4GB), and need to upgrade to 16GB later, how would I do it? Does the new 8GB RAM (1x8GB or 2x4GB) has to be exactly the same model as the first sticks? Or can it be different? What should be the same and what can be different for 2 different RAMs (4x4GB or 2x8GB or 2x4GB+1x8GB) in order for them to be compatible with each other?

10. Which is the best 16GB RAM for around $120? Is RipJaws better than Corsair or vice versa? What's the difference b/w different series of either RAMs?

7. Cause it needs to operate huge amounts of data (videos).

8. Well this is unavoidable, games will require at some time more than 8GB but I doubt this would happen soon... (some AAA titles might break the 8GB RAM limit sooner...)

9. If you buy 2x4GB, if you want to keep the dual channel you have to take 2x4GB again (or 2x8GB...). Same applies to 1x8GB. In order to keep the dual channel you must always have 2 or 4 memory sticks. Yes they need to be the same mhz and the same latency. So its better to buy the same RAM in order to avoid problems.

10. As I said these depends heavily on the offers you can find. These are the best at the moment around $120:

G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 CAS11 1,5V $120.98

Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 CAS9 1,5V $124.99

ps: I always go for 1,5V cause Intel suggests max 1,5V+5% which means 1,575. 1,65V are way ahead. Why should I believe Intel? Well I didn't believed her before and I was overvoltaging my RAM with more than Intel's suggested V. After some years the memory controller was fried (:P) and I had to change a $200 motherboard. Now that memory controllers are on CPU, you can imagine how bad this thing can be...

7. Most likely because the video programs when they preview your work, they put the video in an uncompressed format which is very large.

8. Because of consoles, and games don't really need that much ram unless they're extremely large or sloppily made.

9. No it does not have to be the same sticks, just get the same speed of sticks to avoid issues.

Okay, so it's okay if I get 2x4=8GB of RAM now and 2x4=8GB later. What I have to look out for is that both the sets of RAMs must have the same CAS latency, same MHz and same voltage. Anything else?

11. And what is this CAS latency? What does it matter? And is lower CAS RAM better?

12. I like this Corsair 16GB RAM as it has 9 CAS latency and 1866MHz. What RAM should I look for if I get 8 GB instead of 16 GB?

8gb fine for now, 16gb if you want to max games in future

Personally I say absolutely.

It should be better if its same brand too but anyway...

11. CAS latency: The lower the better.

As you can see here (I copied from Wikipedia) you should usually see only CAS latency (CL) and/or T_RCD, T_RP, T_RAS, something like: 1600Mhz, 9-9-9-27.

These are called Memory timings. So we need all these numbers to be lower in order the RAM to be faster.

12. Well 8GB isn't better priced at the moment so... For around $60:

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 CAS9 1,5V $60.30

For $10 more:

G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 CAS8 1,5V $70.99

If you want similar to 16GB kit, it costs $82.99 :S.

8GB is min 16 GB is future proof price increase with lower voltage, higher density, higher speed and lower cas rating.

@Coseniath Same company, speed and CAS, but different model would work? And thanks for all the details. Really helpful.

13. For 16GB RAM, is it better to have 2x8GB or 4x4GB?

14. If I get 8GB now and 8GB later, how do I pull it off? Will 1x8GB now and 2x4GB later work? Or will 2x4GB now and 1x8GB work? Or should I go for 4x4GB?

@leeuwenhok: Well I have tested different models and they worked some worked from other companies as well but in most cases using the exact same models is the ideal.

13. I would go for 2x8GB since 16GB kits seems to cost less $$ so you can get more GB/$$. Not to mention that you can go for 32GB later for RAMDRIVE or evem leave it like this and use a behemoth air cooler that would not allow to place 4 sticks of RAM.

14. I would go with 2x4GB now and 2x4GB later. or even 2x8GB later (for a total 24GB RAM). So in the end you should always have 2 or 4 RAMsticks in order to use the dual channel.

If $120 or so is your max... Just buy this... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148657

It's got low volts, low latency and it's high density.

I use this RAM on a lot of builds and recommend it.

If you want higher clocked memory... Then for about $3 more you can get this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148740

Both of these RAM modules are superior to any other competitor's memory at the price they go for.

8GB is generally enough for smooth application running, but 16GB is good if you want to go crazy without slow downs, however OP what you should really be worrying about is the CPU, don't look anywhere below an intel core i7 for viedo editing work.

Just would like to state that Linus Tech tips has a very informative video on ram basically showing that ram speed differences have little impact on performance, especially gaming. Don't spend a crazy ass large amount of money for "fast" memory.. Because your not going to notice a difference in performance over a average speed one...

@sSubZerOo:

NM... "Yeah it was more adding on to what you were saying.."

Yeah it was more adding on to what you were saying..

I wouldn't be doing any heavy-ass video editing. Heck, I don't even know if I'll be doing editing. I've never done it before and I won't be getting into it too much. So I probably won't be needing an i7 since the main aim of the new PC would be gaming.

If you have 4 RAM slots, you can make do with 8 GB via 2 x 4 GB RAM sticks. If you feel you need more RAM, then add another 2 sticks.

You don't need that much RAM if all you'll be doing is post gameplay videos in YT.

You should just get 16 gigs of ram to future proof your PC.

RAM isn't super expensive.

I got a 16 GB kit for $104

put this in comparison, my 8 GB kit was $96 when I bought it a year ago.

I am shocked at just how quickly I went through 4GB when I first got my new PC a few weeks ago, had to use my old RAM until my new RAM got here, just a browser, and Windows update were running, and 3.7GB of RAM were being used up. I personally think you should just go with 16GB, as 8GB will probably soon not be enough.

Thanks a lot, guys. 16GB it is then.

Good choice.

Don't ask me how, but I managed to eat up all 8gb through web surfing. Ram = good for multitasking anyway.

16gb is the sweet spot for multitaskers. its not much more for it either these days. But 8gb is probably enough for anyone who just runs one game at a time and doesn't have any extra stuff in the background.

For me i sometimes have work in photoshop opened up or virtualdub compressing a video, even just photoshop with a few 4k sized images with bunch of layers will use up almost 3gb of ram, and if im compressing some videos it can eat up a lot of ram also... so its nice to have extra to give my pc room to run games while all this is going on instead of having to close all my work down everytime i want to play a game.

Also windows is really advanced in how it will use your ram, the more you have, the more it will cache stuff into it making everything run faster. i have no idea how it works but i like seeing windows use lots of available memory to make things run well. Right now its using 12gb cached even though only 3gbs are being used currently, no clue what the means completely but its gotta be good... basically if my pc needs more memory it will sap into the cached stuff i find.

@Old_Gooseberry Yeah, that's nice to know. But I've returned to Windows 7 until Windows 10 is out. Windows 8 was lagging a lot on my laptop's 4GB RAM and Windows 10 TP just had lots of bug.

Is a RAM with 2133MHz and 11 CAS better than a RAM with 1866MHz and 9 CAS?
What matters more, CAS or MHz?

Some people say not to mess with how Windows use a page file. But, setting up the page file to be a permanent size rather than letting Windows dynamically resize it can speed up navigating in Windows.

My old Toshiba laptop (AMD Turion X2, Windows 7) is pretty snappy even with just 4 GB after I set the page file to a permanent 2 GB.

I actually use Windows 7 also still. I found a lot of little things about windows 8 i didnt like. Mainly its interface and compatibility with some of my older games and apps. Some performance also was worse and overall it had a laggy feel to it.

For memory, high frequency vs lower timings .... it all evens out, theres no big advantage in either. I've heard higher higher mhz is useful for apps that require a lot of memory bandwidth, but i don't think anything like this exists for a normal person cause i've benchmarked some 1600mhz ddr i had and compared it to some 2133mhz ram i had and in games anyways there is noway to even determine which is better because its just that close.

Probably if you were to benchmark those two memorys you have there the 1866mhz would be slightly faster (< 1% probably) from the better timings but you would only be able to see it in a benchmark and it would never be noticeable in anything. basically i bet anything those two memorys would perform identical.

You would think lower timings would be better for games, but i've read a lot of benchmarks comparing them both and you dont even see a 1 fps change either way.

I actually have that exact gskill memory you listed there, the 2133mhz... i've been using it for a couple years and its working perfectly so far.

thats a nice tip. I actually read similar somewhere also to set the initial and max page file size so windows isn't constantly changing the size. Probably with a slower drive it may help if windows actually does do this.

I just reinstalled my windows not long ago and its been on auto settings and its pagefile size is 16gb, i'll likely just leave it on auto since its on an brand new fast 512gb SSD and i doubt this would affect its speed. I think its good to leave it enabled though since i think some older programs can get errors if they require pagefile... or if you run low on ram.

I would definitely avoid disabling the page file. Windows uses it regardless of how much RAM the PC has. It depends on the user's habits. But, in my case with 8 GB of RAM, a permanent page file size of 2048 MB seems to be the sweet spot. Besides gaming, I don't do anything more stressful than recording 1080p game footage or converting camcorder footage to .mp4 with Handbrake. My current settings work fine.

Generally the performance rule between these two is: 1 CAS = 100Mhz.

So RAM with 2133MHz and 11 CAS should be slightly faster than 1866MHz and 9 CAS.

Since the MHz and CAS do not create noticeable differences, how much different is a 1600MHz CAS9 RAM from a 2133MHz CAS11 RAM?

Or just find me the best deal on pcpartpicker for 16GB RAM around $120. Thanks.

Normally 8GB is the recommended amount for gaming. If you are doing video etc most recommend 16.

8 GB is the current medium to sweet-spot for gaming, but if you're just building the PC now, I'd either get 12-16 GB or get a configuration of RAM sticks that will leave free a few slots on your motherboard for future upgrades.

Anyone who says you need 16GB for gaming doesn't know what they are talking about. I don't care how badass the game is, you will NEVER use 8GB or even close to it unless there is a memory leak in the game....in which case it is broken.

I just opened up GW2, ESO, and ran scans with Malwarebytes and Security Essentials, with google chrome open.....did not top 6GB usage. I was doing this all at the same time with no issues at all.

8GB is fine for the foreseeable future, period, end of story. When games start coming close to using enough ram where you need 16GB it is the easiest upgrade in the world...buy it then when it is probably 50% cheaper too.

pretty much. i don't think i've ever heard of 8GB ram bottlenecking anything with regards to gaming. a lot of people i know, myself included, run two games at the same time in windowed mode without any problems.

For gaming, you simply do not. And I'm not particularly moved by the future-proofing argument either, because if you're buying 2 8GB sticks right now you're almost surely paying more than you could if you bought 1x8 now and then purchased another years down the line when you actually need it.

For video editing? Maybe. I'll leave that to those "in the know" - some of the responses above imply yes, although I'll admit I'm skeptical. But I make 3D games and I play 3D games and I don't need 16GB for those tasks. Again - maybe for video editing if others say so.

Naw breh, games have been recommending 8gb of RAM for a year now - I think it's really silly to assume they won't be using more anytime soon. It's about time games started using any more RAM. Going from 6gb to 16gb made a pretty big difference in the snappiness of my PC, especially if you like to have music and Chrome and other things running in the background. It's worth it alone just not to have to keep track of memory.

I crack up every time I hear that phrase. As if future proofing any piece of technology is possible.

Hmmm. Can someone post a screenshot of Task Manager using over 8Gb of RAM along with the apps that are running?

Then buy 8 more gb when that time comes, there is absolutely zero reason to buy it now if you are just gaming. By the time you need 16GB it will be half the price it is now. I just told you I purposely ran two virus scans, had two games running, and had chrome up posting what you replied to and I did not even crack 6GB....still had 2GB to spare. What magical game do you think is coming out in the next year that will need to use more than 8GB by itself?

If you upgrade from 6GB to 8GB I guarantee you that you would have seen the same improvement you saw skipping it and going straight to 16GB. You wasted your money.

I can just run my chrome browser and start playing skyrim I can come pretty close to 8GB. Just with AC Unity, Steam, and Skype, I see over 6.2GB or more used already.

I decided to do a test on my own. I have both Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3 running along with several other things (Origin, Uplay, etc) plus I recorded the video on my desktop.