RAM?

[R3dAlert93]

I currently have 16GB of DDR4 RAM and if i get another 8GB chip that will make it 24GB in total will that work fine?

[Omega]

What will exactly happen depends on your motherboard and CPU.

If you are only gaming 16GB is all you will currently need. Dropping in another 8GB module will hurt performance since this module will run in single channel meaning it's half as fast as the other two modules which are running together in dual channel.

[Cathulhu]

Yes, and no.
Will you be able to use the 24GB? Yes.
Will you be able to use Dualchannel mode? No.
Which would reduce the performance of your RAM.
Additionally, a gaming PC is absolutely fine with 16GB RAM.

[R3dAlert93]

Ah... Okay. Its just that I am modding bethesda games and someone said i need more RAM if you want more mods and the game to run good with them. My motherboard is an ASUS PRIME Z390-A (LGA1151) board and processor is i7 8700k 3.70GHz. It is good specs and i don't see why people keep telling me to get better processor when i likely just upgraded the processor last year lol. i9 is way to expensive for me at the moment and it won't make any difference for games.

[Cathulhu]

I see no need for upgrading the CPU either. Too expensive for such a small gain.

Regarding your RAM, have you monitored your RAM usage while the game is running?

[Ogami]

Yeah, what Cathulhu wrote. Running 16 GB of RAM in dual channel is more beneficial to your performance then 3 sticks of 24 GB RAM without.

IF you really want to upgrade to more RAM then get a 32GB Kit of 2 sticks.
But really, 16 GB is still more then enough for every game you can play and more just comes into use with super heavy modding or workstation tasks.

[Overseer]

There is a chance that it will work perfectly fine at the speed you want it to. But at the same time there is also a chance that it won't work at all. So~
Expect something in the middle.

[R3dAlert93]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

I see no need for upgrading the CPU either. Too expensive for such a small gain.

Regarding your RAM, have you monitored your RAM usage while the game is running?

No... what program should i download? I could test it with fallout 4 and skyrim to see what results i get.

[hawkeye]

Originally posted by Proto12Type93:

Ah... Okay. Its just that I am modding bethesda games and someone said i need more RAM if you want more mods and the game to run good with them. My motherboard is an ASUS PRIME Z390-A (LGA1151) board and processor is i7 8700k 3.70GHz. It is good specs and i don't see why people keep telling me to get better processor when i likely just upgraded the processor last year lol. i9 is way to expensive for me at the moment and it won't make any difference for games.

Don't upgrade unless necessary.

If you mean FO4 and SSE games, even modded they only use around 8GB of ram in my experience. But total ram usage by your pc will also depend on what other things that you run whilst gaming.

An 8700k is fine for every game. The difference in performance between a 9700k and 8700k is small. There probably won't be any noticeable difference for FO4 / SSE.

FO4 performance is mostly dependent on the single thread speed of the cpu. 8700k scores 27, the 9700k scores 28, the 9900k scores 29. So not a lot of difference.

A good gpu will help.

And a new disk might be needed. It's fairly easy to build up a 200+ GB of mod downloads for each game.

[_I_]

get a matching dim/kit (first make sure the mobo has enough dimm slots for all ram)

[R3dAlert93]

Originally posted by _I_:

get a matching dim/kit (first make sure the mobo has enough dimm slots for all ram)

Have 2 more spaces lol

[Cathulhu]

Ideally you want to run only 2 sticks.
Running four sticks is possible, but costs performance.
4x8 is slower than 2x16 for example due to RAM management overhead.

[Overseer]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

Ideally you want to run only 2 sticks.
Running four sticks is possible, but costs performance.
4x8 is slower than 2x16 for example due to RAM management overhead.

Not necessarily. Depending on the boards topology, the CPU, the modules and if they are SR or DR you could end up with the exact same performance ceiling. As in 1 DR module per channel, or 2 SR modules per channel.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by Overseer:

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

Ideally you want to run only 2 sticks.
Running four sticks is possible, but costs performance.
4x8 is slower than 2x16 for example due to RAM management overhead.

Not necessarily. Depending on the boards topology, the CPU, the modules and if they are SR or DR you could end up with the exact same performance ceiling. As in 1 DR module per channel, or 2 SR modules per channel.

Also negative effects with 4 sticks on Ryzen because of the IMC. You can get (in some cases significantly) better DRAM frequencies and latencies with 2 sticks than you can with 4.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Escorve:

Originally posted by Overseer:

Not necessarily. Depending on the boards topology, the CPU, the modules and if they are SR or DR you could end up with the exact same performance ceiling. As in 1 DR module per channel, or 2 SR modules per channel.

Also negative effects with 4 sticks on Ryzen because of the IMC. You can get (in some cases significantly) better DRAM frequencies and latencies with 2 sticks than you can with 4.

This kinda of sounds like OCD micro-optimizations to me. I've been hearing it for years and the downward spiral of acting like the 3rd and 4th slots only exists in theory, but don't even considering using them, is a little silly. I'm sure I've been hearing this since Pentium4/original recipe Ahtlon64, AT LEAST.

Like what's the actual performance damage here? How many percentage points are systems being crippled in actuality? I'm open to being crazy for thinking it's a made up problem. But I'm also open to a lot of people repeating and exaggerating non-issues...


Oh wow, so much difference...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhMYmEu8gks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOYiY0OR6CY in quad channel versus dual channel, 4x seems better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDKzCsC9Svs intel 9700k 2x vs 4x

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgqSpLccs2Q ryzen 2700x 2x vs 4x

I mean guys, I'm not cherry picking or engaging in confirmation biases, so just my dumb luck I'm not finding evidence of the crippling effects of running 4x RAM sticks I guess. Or... when everything is great people just make up problems to fuss over.

But go ahead, let's seem some bulletproof evidence of the perils of 4x configurations. And try to keep in mind, I personally may not be moved, at all, over edge case BS.