Question: How much RAM? (yes, I know more is better)
My son and I are finally building a new PC that we have been planning for over a year (for him...was going to be for me, but...) and I want to make sure it handles his games well. Not just "meets the requirements" but really zips through them. I play stuff like Rome1&2, Distant Worlds, Civ4, War in the East, X3, Crusader Kings2, EU4, Alea Jacta Est, etc. He plays Skyrim, Garry's Mod, Battlefield 4, Arma III, etc. So his requirements are totally different from mine and I am not quite sure about his system specs. The original budget of $1000 is blown away already. We have the CPU and motherboard and GPU covered in Cadillac style, and we plan on an SSD and an HDD, so I am looking for places to cut $$$. Dual GPUs are out (he can work this summer to add one if he wants). The mother board is SLI ready (ASUS Maximus VI) and he knows a second GPU will require a PSU bigger than the 850 watts we have lined up. Back to cost cutting: After a few trims here and there about all I have left is RAM. Is 8 gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM enough to speed through ArmaIII with a sigle GeForce GTX 770 or do I need 16 gigs?
Quote from: solops on February 25, 2014, 12:39:53 PM
Question: How much RAM? (yes, I know more is better)
My son and I are finally building a new PC that we have been planning for over a year (for him...was going to be for me, but...) and I want to make sure it handles his games well. Not just "meets the requirements" but really zips through them. I play stuff like Rome1&2, Distant Worlds, Civ4, War in the East, X3, Crusader Kings2, EU4, Alea Jacta Est, etc. He plays Skyrim, Garry's Mod, Battlefield 4, Arma III, etc. So his requirements are totally different from mine and I am not quite sure about his system specs. The original budget of $1000 is blown away already. We have the CPU and motherboard and GPU covered in Cadillac style, and we plan on an SSD and an HDD, so I am looking for places to cut $$$. Dual GPUs are out (he can work this summer to add one if he wants). The mother board is SLI ready (ASUS Maximus VI) and he knows a second GPU will require a PSU bigger than the 850 watts we have lined up. Back to cost cutting: After a few trims here and there about all I have left is RAM. Is 8 gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM enough to speed through ArmaIII with a sigle GeForce GTX 770 or do I need 16 gigs?
I play ARMAIII, but I have pretty modest expectations. For example I never use any AntiAliiasing or post processing. I think I'm getting by with 1.5 gig of graphics and 8 gigs of RAM. It runs okay to me, but I've played computer games for about 30 years so I'm happy with just being able to see what is going on.
8GBs should be quite enough for stuff right now if you are getting a new vid card with 1+GB of video memory.
However, I would recommend getting 16GB of RAM if you can since you should use the exact same brand & model in your machine. It's quite possible to track down the exact same stuff and buy it later if you want to upgrade, but it just makes it easier if you get it all at once.
RAM is relatively cheap as far as computer components go but if you need to shave off a little cost, there's only so much you can shave and this is one.
As always, keep your System Tray programs lean & mean. Run MSCONFIG in your start menu search bar and uncheck all the extra programs under the 'Startup' tab that you don't need running all the time. You know... all that crap running at the bottom right of your task bar, sucking up resources for nought. Just make sure you don't uncheck the stuff listed as "Microsoft" or your video & audio driver stuff.
Thanks for the replies. 8 gigs seems like enough to me, but 16 was the original plan. The GeForce GTX 770 has 2 gigs. I shaved off $90 by going from an i7-4770 3.4Ghz CPU to an i5-4670 3.4GHz CPU. One of the original benchmark reviews for Arma III showed quite a bit of difference between i5 and i7 chips, but that was with 3rd gen i5 chip vs a 4th gen i7-4770. These 4th gen i5 chips are a whole new ballgame and I think the i5-4670 should be fine. Any big performance boost would have to come via an SLI set-up and I just cannot spring for a second GTX 770 plus a 1000 watt PSU. I guess I'll mull a bit on 8 or 16 gigs RAM. Going to faster RAM does not seem to be cost effective, either.
Ran just fine in my old rig with 8 Gb.
But the additional $ to make it 16 Gb doesn't cost much anyway.