I want to build a decent gaming/sopcast pc

Nilrem

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

I don't think it would very long before developers start to produce 64bit only games, desktops and now laptop sales are starting to creep up for 64bit based systems over 32bit as you can run more memory and more memory intensive applications in and on them.


I have seen in games memory spikes of upto 7-8gb usage too in recent releases especially after a few game patches.

That's pretty much the reason I suggested 16gb, I know my brother has had some issues with games where he started running out of memory at certain settings with 8gb*, and I'd already noticed that my very extravagant 32gb was sometimes sitting at 12gb+ used when running some games with Firefox open in the background (I got 32gb and a core i7 partly because I'm doing some video work, and photo manipulation, so oodles of ram is very handy).

There are already some games out, and coming out soon that require a minimum of 6gb system ram, and recommendations for 8gb+.

There is also the minor fact that if you go with say 8gb now, that's 2 out of (usually with 1150 boards) 4 memory slots taken straight away at less than capacity, which means that in a year or two if you go to upgrade you only have two slots free.
Hence my suggestion to try for 16gb now if possible, as that future proofs it a goodly amount.

From a purely personal point of view, when I did my machine the price of memory was a bit lower than it is currently, and I filled the machine up partly because every build I've done in the past I've tended to go for the minimum ram (last time round 4gb about 4 years ago), and then regretted it when by the time I've needed to upgrade the ram it's turned out that either the price has spiked, I need to remove existing sticks, or the ram I'm using is now last generation and thus either harder to find at the size/brand I want, or much more expensive than the successor ram.

One thing I would point out to anyone building a system with windows 7, if you've got the Home premium version it can only use 16gb of system ram + whatever your videocard memory is (at least it's not like the 32bit versions where it counts video card memory against the usable memory)



*IIRC Minecraft with certain texture/mod packs can require 4+gb at the moment, and some of his other games were using over 4gb.

Percy1983

I do think the the games pushing 7gb are more of an exception than a rule and looking at it we are not talking a top end machine right now.

But there is the idea of upgrading later, but we may be at the bottom of DDR3 pricing now, as in it will stay the same and then go up (was attention is turned to DDR4 or such)

If cost is an issue I would say stick 8gb it really will be fine, but a bit extra on future proofing isn't a bad idea either.

Johnmcl7

The versions of Windows beyond XP will try and page as much of the available ram as possible whereas XP and before only used what they needed so even though Windows may show a lot of ram used, it doesn't mean it actually needs it - even at 1440p my machine has not run out of memory while gaming and when that does happen, it's easy enough to upgrade the ram at that point.

Given ram isn't particularly cheap at the moment and it's a budget build with a sub hundred pound graphics card, I don't think money spent on the ram will be worth it right now whereas anything more spent on the graphics card likely will be.

John

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

The versions of Windows beyond XP will try and page as much of the available ram as possible whereas XP and before only used what they needed so even though Windows may show a lot of ram used, it doesn't mean it actually needs it - even at 1440p my machine has not run out of memory while gaming and when that does happen, it's easy enough to upgrade the ram at that point.

Given ram isn't particularly cheap at the moment and it's a budget build with a sub hundred pound graphics card, I don't think money spent on the ram will be worth it right now whereas anything more spent on the graphics card likely will be.

John

only vista does that and that was its achillies heal of the OPSYS.


7 and 8 doesn't.


memory on a graphics cars is key but stick within budget for now I still use a old gtx560 256bit card that runs most games ample enough, ill need to upgrade that in few months time when I want to run titanfall at it optimum settings but it will run it for now.

Percy1983

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

The versions of Windows beyond XP will try and page as much of the available ram as possible whereas XP and before only used what they needed so even though Windows may show a lot of ram used, it doesn't mean it actually needs it - even at 1440p my machine has not run out of memory while gaming and when that does happen, it's easy enough to upgrade the ram at that point.

Given ram isn't particularly cheap at the moment and it's a budget build with a sub hundred pound graphics card, I don't think money spent on the ram will be worth it right now whereas anything more spent on the graphics card likely will be.

John

That did make me laugh when people where saying Vista used too much ram, but the reality is it was using it to speed things up and dropped it the moment something else needed it.

More oddly it seemed strange people paid money for more ram but then got mad if the OS actually used it, I welcome my software to use all my ram as much as possible to give me the best results.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Percy1983 wrote: »

That did make me laugh when people where saying Vista used too much ram, but the reality is it was using it to speed things up and dropped it the moment something else needed it.

More oddly it seemed strange people paid money for more ram but then got mad if the OS actually used it, I welcome my software to use all my ram as much as possible to give me the best results.

trouble is vista allocated memory to programs most used on the system to make it execute faster, trouble with that is it often allocated too much memory, and made other programs run slower.


it was a good idea, but the better solution was to give up that idea for win 7 and 8 as it really wasn't needed.