16GB or 8GB (Faster) RAM?

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PlasticTastic

Bronze Level Poster
Okee so I'm going to get a 15" Vortex III soon. I've decided on my specs, here are the important bits

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2760QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 4GB) OR 8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

But I can't decide between 16GB of 1333MHz or 8GB of 1600MHz. I will be doing the occasional video editing, and sometimes will have multiple programs open (Minecraft server, BF3 e.t.c) so would it be worth getting the extra 8 gigs if it's not as quick?
 
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Daymos

Bronze Level Poster
I say get the 4 x 4GB

Im in the same boat as im looking at the 17inch vortex 3 with similar specs to yourself.. this question has been asked all the time and most answers are also the same.

People say that 16GB slow ram is always better than 8GB fast ram.

If you do video editing or like myself use 3D Studio max then more ram is always the one.

If your like me and have a video rendering in the background whilst creating a 3D scene then more ram is the one to help muilti tasking.

Lastly because the price difference is almost the same..

I say more ram is always the one..


Dont just listen to me but im sure you may get some other opinions from many of the cool guys on this site, then decide.


ps what hard drive options did you decide on?
 
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dangro474

dangro474

Bright Spark
16GB of RAM will be absolutely useless for gaming, however as the real life performance difference of 1333 vs 1600 is completely negligable, you may indeed benefit from the additional RAM when rendering large raw video files and RAM in general is very cheap at present 16GB of 1333 would be a safe bet.
 
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clancy2k

clancy2k

Bronze Level Poster
Generaly when you are picking RAM for gaming, i've heard that 8GB with the higher frequency will produce better performance compared to higher RAM with a lower frequency. As dagro474 said 16GB of RAM is rediculously excessive for gamning alone unless you're planning to do some extreme video editing with your laptop aswell.
 
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PlasticTastic

Bronze Level Poster
Sorry for the slow reply.
dangro474 said:
the real life performance difference of 1333 vs 1600 is completely negligable
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I will be doing a bit of video editing, and will often be running multiple applications (E.g Playing Minecraft while running a server, iTunes, another Minecraft (Don't ask), Chrome with 96974636 tabs, etc). So will the extra speed be worth halving the amount/
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
My take on this is pretty much as dangro474 says:

1. 16GB of RAM is not required for any games at present, but who knows how much RAM some future games will require.

2. Real life performance difference of 1333 vs 1600 is very minimal.

3. You may indeed benefit from the additional RAM when rendering large raw video files.

4. RAM is at an all-time low in terms of cost. It might not increase for many years, but given that Elpida are bankrupt memory prices could go up. My advice is stock up while it is cheap: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/26/us-skhynix-idUKBRE83P05A20120426
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
tom_gr7 said:
How much do you think it would go up? If it did ofcourse.
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Nobody knows unfortunately. If I could predict memory price changes I would be typing this from a beach whilst 'supping a pina colada and having a head rub :D
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
vanthus said:
For gaming 8GB will be more than enough for quite a while.
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odd you say that, whilst it is plenty. I was on bf3 online in the last few days with resource monitor on my second screen and I using nearly 6gb ram at 1600mhz. But I i probably had other programs open too, so that wasn't just gaming.
 
RS2OOO

RS2OOO

Gold Level Poster
My opinion....

If you have to ask the question as to which option you should take it doesn't really matter whether you need it or not because if you buy 8GB you will always be wondering if you should have got 16GB and if you are anything like me, that will bug you forever.

I think its true what they say, if this is your main PC, buy as high spec as you can afford.

My spec started as an i5 with 8GB of 1333Mhz ram and a single 1TB hard drive.

By the time it came out of pre-production I'd upgraded it to an i7 with 16GB of 1600Mhz, a 120GB SSD and the 1TB as a second hard drive.

That took it way over my budget, but 2 Months on and the additional costs have been absorbed through buying own brand baked beans etc etc and not going down the pub for a few Weeks etc, and I'm so happy I did that.

I have a machine that's absolutely beautiful to use and work with and takes anything I can throw at it with ease.... in fact I haven't even got enough programs to get the CPU above 70% usage.... its brilliant.

It might even be the difference between getting another Year out of the machine before next upgrading.
 
mgsolidus

mgsolidus

Enthusiast
Benchmarks between 1333mhz and 1600mhz and even 2400mhz show that they perform almost identically. In come cases, the 1333mhz outperforms the 1600mhz, but only by the narrowest of narrow margins.
For video rendering, more is better. Get 16gb.
 
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slinkyjib

Member
My two cents.

Rather qualified with this stuff, but not going to stretch my peni here.

With Ram, you should always go for the biggest least amount of modules as possible.
the next conscious descision should be, whether having the slower/ larger ram will mean you can have a smaller pagefile?

If you can, I'd recomend 2*8GB's 1333mhz ram. The price difference shouldn't be too much of a hit here. Remember to go into windows settings and turn the size of the pagefile down a little.


Otherwise, you can never have too much ram.
A famous quote that circulated the net years ago was "a computer will never need more than 4MB of RAM"....famous microsoft person.
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
slinkyjib said:
A famous quote that circulated the net years ago was "a computer will never need more than 4MB of RAM"....famous microsoft person.
Click to expand...

Actually I believe the rumoured quote had the numbers of about 640KB mentioned, which is a quite a bit less than 4MB :)
 
nathanjrb

nathanjrb

Prolific Poster
Hi!

I do video editing and invested in 32GB RAM. When rendering 1080p25 I often exceed 16GB of RAM, so I would definitely get the 16GB over the 8GB!
 
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