More RAM or Faster RAM? (+ other questions too.)

[Sam A56]

so basically i cant get enough game systems except i've had 'em all, just not a PC system designed for gaming which i think know i would love even more than the consoles. i was just wondering if i would benefit from building a computer w/ 16 GB of ram @ 1600 MHz or 8 GB of ram @ ~2000 MHz. my mobo supports 4x8 GB memory modules so 32 gigs of ram maximum. which brings me to my next question, if i were to get 8 gigs of memory should i get 1 eight gig module or 2 four gig modules in dual channel mode? okay, moving on, something non-memory related at least. nvidia CUDA or OpenCL? which is used more in games? as for companies (AMD or nvidia), which is better for a system: (1) made for gaming (2) with the AMD-FX 6100 (3) that has a 600-650 dollar cap for spending, or does it not matter?

any pointers would be beneficial to me, thanks in advance,

Sam A56

P.S. here are the parts i have so far...

DVD Drive- 25
CPU- 120
Open Air Case - 50
RAM- 80
1 TB HDD- 82
Keyboard- 26
MOBO- 85
PSU- 40
GPU- TBD

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[Different55]

I would go for faster RAM. Right now I'm working with 300 something MB of RAM (It's a really old computer and I haven't gotten around to buying more RAM) and you don't need a lot of RAM to make most things work.

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[sirpennywise]

I would go for faster RAM. Right now I'm working with 300 something MB of RAM (It's a really old computer and I haven't gotten around to buying more RAM) and you don't need a lot of RAM to make most things work.

I hope your not planning on multi-tasking with only 300mb of ram.

Personally with Windows7 - and only 1 browser open im sitting at 3GB worth of used RAM, if i open a game or two that shoots up drastically. and Im always multi tasking, Game Maps / Guides / Chat windows / Forums .. all open on my second monitor.

I tried to game with 8GB of RAM running at 1666Mhz and it would fill up quick and lag. It wasn't the speed of the ram that was slowing everything down, it was the huge amounts of data that programs use these days <if your PC is running an up to date OS>

You have to find a balance, it also plays off to take your other items into consideration where possible bottlenecks that may occur.. HDD speed / CPU / GPU / BUS Speeds and find a happy medium...

I use a GTX 580 for my Video card and currently i can run any game on max settings with 1920x1080 resolution and I never drop below 60 <I always run with Vsync On to cap my FPS at the same as my monitor> and i have never had any issues with any games that i have run <Dishonored / WOW / EvE / Mass Effect series / Skyrim / CIV 5 / Guildwars 2 / Swtor / etc etc all of those played perfectly fine on my system after i upgraded my ram to 16GB

Ram is one of those things that you can always upgrade easily, you can start out with a lower number then if you see your system using it, buy another stick and place it in....

CUDA technology is really nice, there are tons of programs that are now using that to process applications Faster... I have a Video Converter that converts videos using my GPU... A task that would take an hour with my CPU can be finished in 5 minutes or less with my GPU

You will want to check the BUS speeds on the motherboard...you may be getting some hardware that will outperform the motherboard...

Something else on your list that you might try to budget in is a Solid State Drive - I can boot into windows in about 8 seconds from a cold boot.

and most importantly DON'T SKIMP ON YOUR POWER SUPPLY!!!!!

[Elyseux]

I'd say go for the 2x4GB. Current games( and unreleased ones) will not use 16GB of ram, we're still a long way of from that. And yes, do get 2x4GB. Dual-channel mode helps. As for the GPU, OpenCL and CUDA mostly only matters in editing. Most editing program( as far as I know) use CUDA instead of OpenCL, which makes editing faster. In games, CUDA only comes into play when you want native PhysX support( which is the game trying to emulate real-world physics in the game using the CUDA cores in the GPU). Notice I said native. That's because most PhysX capable games can be modded( usually in the config file) to run PhysX on AMD GPUs. Also, a lot of other games use other iterations of physics in games, which doesn't require a NVidia GPU to work. As for the which brand, it's usually a matter of preference, use and/or the choice of games. If you want to both edit and game, then a NVidia GPU is your best bet( though you can edit on AMD GPUs. A good example is Sony Vegas, which has OpenCL acceleration. It's just that you'll get a lot more support with NVidia GPUs). If you want raw gaming performance, gaming at higher resolutions and/or want to mine BitCoins( search for it on Google), then AMD is the way to go( AMD generally has better performance with higher resolutions and textures. It's because AMD has better/higher memory bandwidth, which you don't really need to know). Then, it's also a matter of games. Some games generally run better on NVidia GPUs( mostly games that were made on a NVidia system or was sponsored by NVidia), and some games generally run better on AMD cards( same case, mostly games written for AMD cards).

[Elyseux]

I would go for faster RAM. Right now I'm working with 300 something MB of RAM (It's a really old computer and I haven't gotten around to buying more RAM) and you don't need a lot of RAM to make most things work.

I hope your not planning on multi-tasking with only 300mb of ram.

Personally with Windows7 - and only 1 browser open im sitting at 3GB worth of used RAM, if i open a game or two that shoots up drastically. and Im always multi tasking, Game Maps / Guides / Chat windows / Forums .. all open on my second monitor.

I tried to game with 8GB of RAM running at 1666Mhz and it would fill up quick and lag. It wasn't the speed of the ram that was slowing everything down, it was the huge amounts of data that programs use these days <if your PC is running an up to date OS>

You have to find a balance, it also plays off to take your other items into consideration where possible bottlenecks that may occur.. HDD speed / CPU / GPU / BUS Speeds and find a happy medium...

I use a GTX 580 for my Video card and currently i can run any game on max settings with 1920x1080 resolution and I never drop below 60 <I always run with Vsync On to cap my FPS at the same as my monitor> and i have never had any issues with any games that i have run <Dishonored / WOW / EvE / Mass Effect series / Skyrim / CIV 5 / Guildwars 2 / Swtor / etc etc all of those played perfectly fine on my system after i upgraded my ram to 16GB

Ram is one of those things that you can always upgrade easily, you can start out with a lower number then if you see your system using it, buy another stick and place it in....

CUDA technology is really nice, there are tons of programs that are now using that to process applications Faster... I have a Video Converter that converts videos using my GPU... A task that would take an hour with my CPU can be finished in 5 minutes or less with my GPU

You will want to check the BUS speeds on the motherboard...you may be getting some hardware that will outperform the motherboard...

Something else on your list that you might try to budget in is a Solid State Drive - I can boot into windows in about 8 seconds from a cold boot.

and most importantly DON'T SKIMP ON YOUR POWER SUPPLY!!!!!

Oh wow, you're filling up 8GB of ram? Are you sure you're not running any processes in the background? I have a laptop with 4GB of ram which I sometimes game on, and it rarely uses over 2GB. I was playing games like Batman Arkham Asylum, DOTA 2 and BF3

[Theredbaron]

Really, it all depends on your OS of choice as to how much ram you need. If you go with a modern Win you will "need" at least 4gb, but 8gb would be recommended. However, if you go with WinXP, 4gb is the max I would add (note, you need x64 win for that to be of use). Then there is linux. I run my "gaming" computer with Lubuntu and 4gb of ram. For your day to day things, I use less then 1gb of that, about 200mb for everything except firefox(firefox with RES can eat up your ram). I have never gone over 2gb, except for gaming. And even then never over 3gb. The rest is just used as cache.

And also just about nothing can use more then 8gb of ram anyways. Unless you are going to be using ALOT of stuff at the same time, or doing vid editing, 8gb of fast ram is better then 16gb of slow.