Ask Ram or run from Ram?
Ask Ram or run from Ram?
Oh cool and smart PC guys, please tell me. Am I thinking about right? I want to know if adding more memory sticks is the best move now. My current hardware is X470 AORUS GAMING 7 WIFI motherboard with Ryzen 5800 processor, 16 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM, Trident Z 3200 MT/s graphics card GeForce 3070 Ti, and an 800w gold power supply. When I play some really heavy games, my memory sticks get full and make the computer slow down a lot. What would be the next best thing to add? Thanks so much!
800w gold psu Make model and age of the PSU? Do you have 16gb ddr4 ram (trident z 3200mt/s)? When did you buy this ram kit? If you got it from a place that sells them, chances are they won't work if the batches are different. You can get a fast latency ram kit, like 2x16GB DDR4-3600MHz, and just ignore the rest. Just make sure to update your motherboard BIOS before starting this upgrade path. What games do you think are "heavier"? In terms of memory size, in 2025, 32gb is the normal amount for most people because the computer uses about 16gb just for the system and background stuff when playing big games. Where are you from? Do you have a budget to upgrade and what site do you like to buy things from?
You got three hundred twenty gigs of ram for just fifty dollars. Why not get it? But if you change settings or turn resolution up, your video memory might get tight because the card only has eight gigabytes and sometimes other cards need even more space.
My PSU got in 2023 and is a gold Seagate one. The RAM that I bought back then was from 2023 too, so it's the same model but newer. I'm wondering if using both might cause problems? When I updated my BIOS in 2023 with my new CPU, I guess I should update again. For heavy games like Escape from Tarkov or Gray Zone, plus Witcher and running 2K resolution, what do you think is the best budget setup around $1k at Micro Center near Minneapolis?
Task manager can be confusing if you use it to guess how much RAM you need. Windows keeps old programs in memory just in case they run again soon. If an app wants something that isn't in memory right now, it has to ask for it from the page file and write some old stuff there to make room. That is a hard page fault, but while that happens the game stops working. Fixing it can be very bad if your page file is on a slow drive like an HDD. In the task manager's Resource Monitor tab, look at the "hard fault rate" column. If you see anything above zero, it means adding more RAM might help. If you are just playing games without doing other stuff while gaming, more RAM probably won't make much difference for most of them. Adding more RAM is usually a bad idea because it might not work at all. You should replace some RAM instead. The new RAM has to be from the exact same type as your current one so it works like promised. Since RAM is cheap, buy a 32 gigabyte two stick kit that the manufacturer explicitly says is supported for your specific motherboard and CPU combination. Check either the motherboards ram quality list or the ram vendor's support list for this.
I definitely made a mistake saying that. I actually have 32 gigs of memory in my computer. The number of times the hard drive asks me for data is mostly zero, with just one or two times happening every couple gigabytes. Should RAM still be the best choice or should it be time to start thinking about graphics cards?
My links are broken right now. I'm pretty sure getting more than 32 gigabytes of RAM won't help you much at all. Having extra memory isn't bad unless it costs too much money for you.
Sorry, it was just a picture of my computer specs. Current time is Sunday, May 11th at 9:05 AM on Windows 11 Home (64-bit language). The machine is made by Gigabyte and runs the X470 AORUS GAMING 7 with AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X processor, lots of RAM, but not much graphics power. Would it make sense to upgrade just the GPU instead of adding more memory?
If you're unsure about your setup, check how balanced your CPU and GPU are right now. If lowering the settings made the test faster, getting a better GPU makes sense. On the other hand, if nothing changed when you cut back on specs, it's time to upgrade your processor instead. For a strong jump in power, adding a new motherboard will likely help too.