The Memory Buyer's Guide: What's the Best RAM for My System?
The Memory Buyer's Guide: What's the Best RAM for My System?
Posted 08/30/2011 at 1:40pm
| by Paul Escallier
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Not sure what kind of memory to put in your new system? Ask MaximumPC.
A few months back, Loyd Case answered the popular question, “Which Video Card Should I Buy?” Needless to say, his story caused a considerable lull in video card related questions from our readers, letting a new topic take the lead: RAM. How much do you need? How fast should it be? Are latencies important? Today, we’ll be covering everything you need to know to get the right RAM for your system.
The Importance of RAM
Did I mention that this is going to be an all-encompassing guide on RAM? No? Well it is, so those of you who already know what RAM is for and how it works can skip ahead.
RAM stands for Random Access Memory and it stands as somewhat of a buffer between your hard drive and your CPU. There’s really nothing random about it; the CPU (generally) knows exactly what data it’s playing around with. When the CPU is processing data, it’s grabbing small bits in your systems memory, constantly jumping from place to place, reading, writing, and rewriting information. Hard drives work well when working with large blocks of data, but are extremely slow when jumping from sector to sector or switching from read to write. If your CPU had to process data directly on the hard drive, there would be a massive bottleneck.
So that’s why you need RAM. Having more RAM means you need to read from the excruciatingly slow hard drive less often, and faster RAM means your CPU can grab its bits faster. Of course, this still doesn’t answer how much RAM you need or in what circumstances faster RAM is actually useful.
How Much Memory Do You Need?
There’s really no such thing as too much RAM, but there is such a thing as spending too much on RAM. What you do with your computer is what dictates whether or not more memory is actually practical. Below are some of the key stepping stones when it comes to how much memory a system needs.
IBM’s latest supercomputer Watson has 16TB of RAM. Overkill?
2GB – THE BARE MINIMUM
There is such a thing as not enough RAM, and anything below 2GB is bordering on just that. In fact, the 64-bit version of Windows 7 won’t even install on a system with less than 2GB of memory. Now, that’s not to say 2GB isn’t enough for anything. Your every day computing tasks, such as web browsing, editing documents, and even HD video, will be fine on such a system, so long as you’re not doing all of it at once.
G.Skill's balance of performance and value makes it a popular brand.
Running on just 2GB does have some limitations, though. Ever since Windows Vista, we’ve had a tool called SuperFetch which pre-loads your most used apps into memory so that they open faster when you need them. Windows likes to keep about half of your total memory free, using the rest as SuperFetch space. Small problem: with just 2GB of RAM and essential operating system resources taking up about a gig of memory to begin with, it doesn’t leave much space for SuperFetch to use.
Things will still run just fine, but additional RAM will give a large jump in performance, and at the current prices, stepping up to 4gigs is a pretty worthwhile investment. Apart from netbooks, you’d be hard pressed to find anything modern that comes with just 2gigs of memory anyway.
4GB – AN ALL-AROUND SWEET SPOT
When it comes to a balance of cost and performance, 4GB is just about perfect, at least for the time being. In every day computing, you probably won’t ever come close to filling it all up – well, unless you’re like me and have a nasty habit of leaving 116 tabs of Flash rich content open in Chrome.
Crucial is a very popular brand amongst hardcore gamers.
Even high-end gaming performs well with just 4GB of memory. Feel free to enjoy a casual bit of Photoshop and/or video editing, too. Apart from some very purpose specific computing, like extensive hi-res photo editing or industrial grade 3D modeling, 4gigs is the number to aim for.
8GB AND BEYOND
Stepping up to 8gigs can still be practical, especially when building a new system in which the additional investment would be fairly negligible. Any performance increases in going from 4 to 8GB won’t be particularly noticeable, but it does open up a few doors.
Unless you partake in very specific computing practices that can actually fill up the entire 8gigs, you can go ahead and disable your pagefile entirely. This will give you slight performance increases under certain circumstances, improve your system’s security, and put less strain on your hard drive.
Kingston has been in the game for years and has a wide selection.
From a gaming perspective, putting 8gigs of memory into a system is primarily a form of future proofing; however, in a professional environment, as a workstation running commercial grade software, 8GB may very well be necessary to keep things running smoothly.
3, 6, AND 12GB
You may have noticed the absence of any recommendations relating to 3, 6, and 12GB solutions. That’s because achieving 6GB of RAM, for example, requires an odd combination of DIMMs (memory sticks). In this example, you would need three 2GB DIMMs, meaning you would not be able to run them in a Dual Channel Configuration.
Dual Channel memory allows the CPU to access both DIMMs simultaneously, essentially turning the 64-bit memory bus into 128-bits. As far as gaming and your average computer use is concerned, dual channel and single channel configurations will perform almost identically, but any memory intensive operation, such as audio or video transcoding, will see significant improvements.
Corsair has always been one of our favorite memory brands.
In order to enable the dual channel memory bus, you need an even number of identical DIMMs, which is why 3, 6, and 12GB won’t work; however, unless you plan on doing a lot of memory I/O intensive work, the performance benefits of more RAM generally outweigh the benefits of the larger memory bus.
There is one exception – triple channel memory. In the case of the LGA1366 Core i7, memory can be configured into a triple channel bus using three identical DIMMs, meaning 6 and 12GB are much more practical.
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Vidalakis
March 14, 2012 at 12:14am
My computer's memory is 4GB, in general, but also enough speed.Usually just browse the web, and did not play the game.
http://www.pelletmachines.net/
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AKShockwave
September 05, 2011 at 10:44pm
Very informative, guide, I'd like to see more. A guide on all the computer parts would be nice. Especially motherboards, I know about most components of a computer with the exception of the motherboard, which I know very little about what's good and what's not.
bautrey
September 01, 2011 at 10:52am
YAHA!!! I found the answer to the question ppl have been talking about here.
According to CPU magazine Vol. 11 Iss.09 pg. 64, "... Sandy Bridge are designed to run at 1.5V rather than the 1.65V maximum voltage found on previous generation P55 and H55 Intel chipsets. As such, you'll see phrases like "ready for Sandy Bridge" or "copatible with P67 and H67 chipsets" when shopping for new memory. If the memory voltage is pushed too high, the memory controller built into Sandy Bridge processors could overheat, which could damage or kill your processor."
So what this means is that memory that is designed to run for Intel CPU's just says that it runs at 1.5V to be "compatible". This means that they will work on other platforms also.
vectorizer
August 31, 2011 at 4:54pm
I built with 6Gb on LGA1366 (triple channel) and Win7 x64. Even with 2 VMWare sessions running live OSes plus significant apps in the base OS (the most memory-intensive thing I do), the total memory used is 60% or less.
There is a lot of conflicting advice about turning off the pagefile, but decided to do it when I saw big IO reported on the pagefile while encoding video. Running without a pagefile for about 6 months with no ill effects. So, I haven't seen any advantage in having more than 4GB. It seems like the overall performance advantage to adding memory is steep at first 1-2Gb, then levels off at 4Gb. It looks like more than 6 or 8Gb (depending on channelness) is a complete waste of money. Anyone seen counter-examples?
streetking
September 04, 2011 at 2:47am
i read a comment (think it was on here) from some guy saying he had oblivion going with full draw distance and a few other settings maxed and a couple mods and he was using up 8 or 12 gigs of ram...
QuadraQ
August 31, 2011 at 3:32pm
This statement is inaccurate: "That’s because achieving 6GB of RAM, for example, requires an odd combination of DIMMs (memory sticks). In this example, you would need three 2GB DIMMs, meaning you would not be able to run them in a Dual Channel Configuration."
My HP Pavilion that I'm replacing with my own custom built PC came with 3GB of RAM by using two 1 GB sticks and two 512MB sticks for a total of 3GB while still maintaining the Dual Channel configuration. The same can be achieved for 6GB by using two 2GB sticks with two 1GB sticks. As long as the two sticks of RAM are identical for each set of RAM slots, they can run in Dual Channel mode. Not all 4 (or 6) slots have to be identical.
Alcasan
August 31, 2011 at 12:45pm
I also always thought that disabling the pagefile would "force" windows to use ram exclusively, if you had alot. But then I read an article by a guy--who seems to know what he's talking about--that says this really doesn't improve anything cause of the way that Windows actually uses the pagefile. He does recommend putting the pagefile on a physical disk drive different than that of the OS, if using the old mechanical drives. I read this from an article about XP, so I don't know if maybe Vista/7 treat the pagefile differently now. (He does have articles about 7, but I can't remember if he said the same thing there too. His website is tweakguides.com, and the relevant paragraph is in the (rather long) tweakguides tweaking companion. He now writes optimization guides for nvidia at geforce.com/Optimize. Interested in your thoughts on this...
psi
August 31, 2011 at 12:19pm
Article mentions disabling the page file with loads of RAM.
I don't know about Windows 7, but I remember that was considered a bad idea on earlier NT-based Windows versions (even if the total new RAM was same as total RAM/swap of previous configuration. Is that still true?
QuantumRand
September 01, 2011 at 2:22am
There are a few (mostly legacy) applications that require pagefile space. Those apps wouldn't run properly with the pagefile disabled, but it's rare that you'll run into them.
Madman777
August 31, 2011 at 8:17am
Nice!!
I just recently installed another 4GB of RAM into my system.
I now have 16GB of Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz. 9-9-9-24. Can render video, fly simulations, and record fraps with other simulations all at the same time.
I love PC's!!!!!!!
PCLinuxguy
August 31, 2011 at 8:02am
with prices these days it is just easier when building or buying a boutique machine (like from cyberpower) it's just easier to start with 8GB minimum and if you can just max out the board with ram, atleast then it'll somewhat future proof your machine in that regard, and since ddr3 seems to be sticking around for a while it'll migrate to your next system. Not to mention gaming might see some improvements over an older system that had 2 or 4 GB of ram.
Cy-Kill
August 31, 2011 at 5:58am
"That’s because achieving 6GB of RAM, for example, requires an odd combination of DIMMs (memory sticks). In this example, you would need three 2GB DIMMs, meaning you would not be able to run them in a Dual Channel Configuration."
Are you new to computers if so, please do some research, because I've got 6GB of RAM running in triple channel, and if I upgraded to 12GB it would be the same, but now that 12GB kits of RAM are so cheap I plan on buying two of them as my mobo can handle 24GB of RAM in triple channel.
tony487
September 23, 2011 at 7:48am
There is one exception – triple channel memory. In the case of the LGA1366 Core i7, memory can be configured into a triple channel bus using three identical DIMMs, meaning 6 and 12GB are much more practical.
So, in DUAL channel, he is not entirel wrong... but he mentions the triple channel option. Also, there was mentioned that dual channel boards with 4 slots you could do 2-2GB and 2-1GB to get to 6, for example
Brad Nimbus
August 31, 2011 at 6:38am
Did you not read the rest of the article? How can you even attempt to pretend to be smarter than people who do this for a living? Next time before being an asshole finish reading the article.
TerribleToaster
August 31, 2011 at 6:34am
What the hell are you talking about? I seriously don't understand what you are trying to get at.
They are saying that having 3GB, 6GB, 12GB, require an odd number of sticks (as in, not an even number). Which is true. If you are only talking about 3GB, 6GB, and 12GB, you are using 3 sticks of memory (1GB ,2GB, or 4GB each; respectively). This means you cannot be running them in a Dual Channel Configuration because 3 is not a multiple of 2, even in Bizarro World.
You pointing out that you are running 12GB in Triple Channel means nothing because they are talking about Dual Channel, which is (and I know this may be surprising) not the same thing as Triple Channel.
In fact, they mentioned Triple Channel right after that:
"There is one exception – triple channel memory. In the case of the LGA1366 Core i7, memory can be configured into a triple channel bus using three identical DIMMs, meaning 6 and 12GB are much more practical."
24GB or 48GB don't matter because they can be made up to run in both Dual and Triple Channel Configuration since you are use 6 or 12 sticks of RAM (6 is a multiple of both 3 and 2).
praetor_alpha
August 31, 2011 at 5:27am
If you can burn some cash maxing out (or half maxing out) the RAM on your mobo, go for it! The machine I built over 3 years ago has 8gb. The Sandy Bridge I built in January (before it got recalled) has 16gb. Sure wish most games would hurry up and be 64 bit, if only so levels can be preloaded into RAM before you get to them. But since everything's so ported nowadays, I don't see it happening for some time. Even Starcraft 2 runs 32 bit on my system.
In the mean time, I just program stuff in virtual machines.
lurker
August 31, 2011 at 2:00am
I got 16GB of DDR3 Corsair Vengeance because it's cheap... $99. Why bother going lower, I think DDR3 represents great value for money at the moment.
Holly Golightly
August 31, 2011 at 12:46am
Wow, this is perfect timing! I am in the process of building my current configuration. My motherboard only does Dual Channel DDR3... What is the recommended latency for gaming? I simply want to target the sweet spots like 4GB at 1600. Of course, I am aware I can overclock it making it future-proof. I am thinking of getting 16GB of RAM though... As I am tipping my current 4GB RAM at 65% with only basic programs running. I can see 4GB of RAM getting outdated rather quickly. I think the next sweet spot is either 8 or 16 for sure. I am a bit nervous on the voltages... I think I will stick to the basics with voltages.
QuantumRand
September 01, 2011 at 2:19am
8gigs will be plently (if you're using Vista or 7, that 65% is likely just SuperFetch pre-loading things). That money you'd spend on 16gigs will see better performance increases if you spend it elsewhere, like a better video card or monitor for example. When the day comes that you'll actually need 16gigs, you'll likely have already replaced your entire system (or the additional 8gigs will be a lot cheaper).
I agree with Hexen. Go with the RipJaws. I never used to like G.Skill, but their consistant quality and performance has won me over. Corsair makes great RAM as well, but G.Skill typically holds the better price point. Personally, I don't care for Patriot.
You don't necessarily need to limit yourself to 1600MHz either, especially if you're going to be overclocking. With typical 1600MHz DIMMs at stock voltages, you won't get much more than a couple hundred MHz increase before you start seeing instability. Going with a higher rated speed will give you more room for overclocking. (I'm assuming your motherboard tops out at 1600MHz)
Holly Golightly
September 01, 2011 at 9:41pm
Okay, well maybe you can help me out in regards to the right speed. My motherboard says it supports many different speeds. "4 x DIMM, Max. 32GB, DDR3 1866/1800/1600/1333/1066 Hz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory. Dual Channel Memory Architecture." So I could not get 1800 and overclock it to say 2000... Unless there are no limits to what my motherboard can over clock with. This, to me is one of the hardest parts of building a system, to get the specs of RAM right. This will be my first buld. I just have not gotten my CPU, VGA, or RAM yet. Just PSU, MoBo, and case. Any help to clear the confusion is super.
QuantumRand
September 02, 2011 at 2:17am
It really depends on your motherboard. My last major overclocking rig I had ran a Core 2 Duo on a GA-965P-DS3 with some OCZ Platinum DDR2-800 RAM. That motherboard was limited to 800MHz with the RAM, but all that means is that the RAM multiplier goes up to 1.5 (FSB of 266MHz * 1.5 * Double Data Rate = 800MHz). When overclocking my FSB to 450MHz my RAM would have been running at 1350MHz. Since it was only DDR2-800, it was tough to get it past 950MHz (I managed to get it stable at 1125MHz by running it at 2.4V - Don't run your DDR3 at 2.4V).
Even though the motherboard didn't specifically support the higher RAM speeds, using DDR2-1066 would have probably let me keep the 1.5 multiplier and run it at the full 1350MHz.
Now some more modern motherboards allow for more dynamic RAM speed control, doing away with the whole multiplier business. You should check out forums regarding your specific mobo model to see how it treats RAM, and what kind of overclocking tollerences it has.
But really, unless you're planning on getting pretty serious into the overclocking scene, you probably don't need to worry about getting RAM faster than your motherboard officially supports. If I were building an AMD computer right now, I'd probably go with the G.Skill PI 1600 RAM (F3-12800CL6Q-8GBPI). Assuming you're building a gaming rig, that CL6 will be nice. Now, it's a little pricier than the RipJaw X, but those only achieve their tight timings through Intel's XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile) technology, which won't benefit you on an AMD platform.
h e x e n
August 31, 2011 at 5:13am
I you're building a new system, go with 8 gigs of 1600. Right now, it's dirt cheap, cheaper than DDR2 bundles. CAS latency should be at a stock 9 or 8 for DDR3. I recommend the Gskill Ripjaws X series because they come with a CAS of 8 already. Very solid memory that performs insanely well.
Holly Golightly
August 31, 2011 at 5:10pm
I have been debating on which to choose. I am considering between 3 actually. Patriot Viper, Gskill Ripjaws, and Corsair Venegence. So you would recommend the Ripjaws over the viper and vengence for sure? Thanks so much for the help :)
h e x e n
September 01, 2011 at 4:35am
You're welcome.
You're looking at all three of the heavy hitters. Those are the top three brands and models, and, the ones I would recommend.
Im a real fan of Patriot memory as well. I have a friend running an 8gb Viper 1600 kit and he loves them. Patriot also comes with a stock CAS of 8. I'd still recommend the Gskill over all, but the Kingston Viper line is also awesome memory.
Gskill also makes a set that has a CAS of 7. Both are on newegg and say "Designed for Intel P67 motherboard". Trust me, they work just as good in an AMD board.
Holly Golightly
September 01, 2011 at 9:46pm
Is there really a noticable difference between CAS of 7 and CAS of 8 when using all 4 channels? I have seen waaay too many companies saying "works best on intel" too, which is total B.S., and the RAM makers are just selling out. Intel and Nvidia have that thing going with almost every product maker out there. Thanks for the recommendation. As for my question, if there is a big difference... Can you say the difference is even greater when paired with CAS of 6 RAM? Gosh, soo many different versions is driving me insane. Thanks again for the help.
h e x e n
September 02, 2011 at 4:46am
I doubt it will be anything you'll notice unless you set up two systems side by side, but the general rule of thumb when it comes to RAM, is that the tighter (or lower) the timings, the quicker your system should run. While not entirely technically accurate, a basic explanation is that you are decreasing the number of columns (CAS = column access/address strobe) and rows (RAS = row access/address strobe) so that the memory takes less cycles to access the data stored in them. The lower the number, the less cycles the memory has to perform to fetch the data.
Games rely heavily on these numbers, so the tighter you can get the timings while remaining stable, the quicker your games will load and the faster your CPU can communicate with the RAM. It might not be anything major, but it can tack on some extra FPS and lower load times when launching programs or playing games.
I'd stick with 1600 speeds when it comes to DDR3. It's one of the most common and you're less likely to run into trouble than say, buying a higher speed with the intent to overclock.
QuantumRand
September 03, 2011 at 12:46am
I've found that the biggest benefit to tight timings in games comes when doing things like quick turns and jerk/reaction shots. Especially in modern games with features like tesselation, you can experience a small lag with higher latency RAM when doing a 180 degree turn or darting around a corner.
war59312
August 31, 2011 at 12:24am
I recommend 6 GB for i7 triple channel mother boards.
Sweet spot for most of my costumers. 12 GB just cost too much today for very little improvement beyond 6 GB.
Only supper high end users need more than 6 GB in my experience. Never gamers!
Supper high end users being users who do a lot of HD video editing and users that use virtual machines a lot.
markstrelecki
September 04, 2011 at 9:40am
As I will be moving to a VM-based architecture soon, I maxed out the RAM on this old MSI X58 mobo to 24GB.
I bought online and got a great deal. I like to check Pricewatch when shopping for electronic stuff.
I don't agree that 4GB is a sweetspot, though increased benefits DO come more sparingly after that point.
My mobo started life at 6GB and is now honking four times that. There is little additional speed noticed because of that.
I recently added a 60GB SSD from MicroCenter that features a Sandforce controller, and THAT really speeded things up!
And while I really like the stuff MaximumPC covers, and have been a subscriber since the boot days, I CONTINUE to be amazed at the sheer volume of proofreading errors that make it to the website.
You guys could do a LOT WORSE than hiring me to make that work for you....
MARK STRELECKI
Atlanta, GA.
joeking
August 30, 2011 at 10:38pm
Nice article. I did not know graphics card memory was included in the 4GB limitation on a 32-bit OS. This information kinda fits into some questions I wanted to ask.
Let's say you have a motherboard that supports a maximum 4GB of DDR2 memory, and also supports dual-channel configurations. You install 2x 2GB DDR2 DIMMS, in dual-channel configuration. Your video card has 1GB of memory. You're running a 32-bit OS, Windows XP Pro for example. You boot up, Windows shows 3GB of physical memory available (correct?). Now, is 1.5 GB available from one DIMM, and another 1.5 GB available from the other DIMM? Or is 2GB availble from one DIMM, and only 1GB available from the other DIMM (1GB remains dormant)? Also, will dual-channel mode still work in this situation?
And since graphics card memory is included in this limitation, how come it does not show up as physical memory in task manager? If I have 2GB of memory installed, and a 1GB video card, shouldn't it say I have 3GB of physical memory?
Also, I'm curious. I've read many times that if you install 4GB of memory on a Windows XP 32-bit system, it will actually show 3.5 GB of physical memory available. Why is this? Does this happen on 32-bit Vista/Win7?
markstrelecki
September 04, 2011 at 9:44am
You may be surprised if you do a search for RAM supported by all Microsoft Windows server operating systems.
You will find several 32-bit versions that do indeed support more than 4GB RAM.
MARK STRELECKI
Atlanta, GA.
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