Adding more Ram to PC advice needed

[JJ_Young]

Hi

I currently use a PC Specialist PC that I got in 2010, I don't have the money to buy a new one just now and it still works ok on the games I play, I was thinking about adding another 2GB ram to it to see if it would be a bit better in some of the newish games but not sure if I can just add 2gb or if I would need to replace the ram I have.

Pc Spec is -
Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE (£82)**SPECIAL**
Overclocked CPU
OverClocked Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-930 (2.8GHz @ max 3.8GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D-E: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
6GB KINGSTON HYPERX TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, INTEL X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB GTX 770
1st Storage Drive
50GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Storage Drive
100GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
3rd Storage Drive
1tb WD blue
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EXTREME DIRECT TOUCH COPPER CPU COOLER
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium - Fatal1ty Professional Series


Any advice would be great.

Thanks
J

 

[Stephen M]

A quick check would be to log into the PCS account you ordered the PC on and go to the upgrade section, it should only offer any upgrade that will work with your system, if RAM is there it should be OK, although I would check back here as well to get an answer as well.

 

[JJ_Young]

Hi,

I checked that but RAM wasn't on the list for upgrading through PCS.

 

[ubuysa]

What makes you think that RAM will make newer games better? Do you have any indication that you are out of RAM? You really want some hard evidence that RAM is (or will be) a bottleneck before spending any money.

 

[steaky360]

I believe since you have Tri-Channel RAM you'd be better off replacing the whole lot (it works best in sets of 3's).

You should be able to replace it with any DDR3 RAM running at 1600MHz

6x DIMM, Max. 24GB, DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 Hz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory, Triple Channel Memory Architecture

But to be sure you can check the compatibility list on the motherboard webpage (here: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P6X58DE/specifications/) or perhaps consider phoning PCS for advice, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to help.

Of course, ubuysa is right if you don't 'need' RAM then don't bother getting it.

 

[Oussebon]

I believe since you have Tri-Channel RAM you'd be better off replacing the whole lot (it works best in sets of 3's).

You should be able to replace it with any DDR3 RAM running at 1600MHz



But to be sure you can check the compatibility list on the motherboard webpage (here: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P6X58DE/specifications/) or perhaps consider phoning PCS for advice, I'm pretty sure they'd be able to help.

Of course, ubuysa is right if you don't 'need' RAM then don't bother getting it.

Exactly this.

Plus given high RAM prices right now, even if you do establish that replacing the RAM would give a bit more performance, it might well not be worth buying it anyway versus setting that aside for a new system in due course. What's the point of lifting a RAM quantity bottleneck only to expose other bottlenecks that mean your performance is still limited.

 

[JJ_Young]

Hi

The only reason I was thinking about adding extra ram is that on some games the minimum requirements are 8GB like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, PUBG, FALLOUT 76 etc and thought it would be the cheapest update (and probably last) as I'll probably get a new PC next year so was just trying to make it last.

 

[Oussebon]

The minimum requirements are very loose guidelines. BF1 has a minimum requirement of an i5 6600k but you can and always could run it on a much older CPU.

Some games can show performance differences between 8gb and 16gb, depending on the settings anyway, but the rest of your system is probably going to be more of a bottleneck.

If you're going to get the game anyway at some point, buy it when on sale (or in the case of Fallout 76, when Bethesda sort their freaking lives out) and see how it runs. If it doesn't run at all, look into whether RAM is the issue. If it runs poorly, more RAM probably won't fix that entirely anyway, even if it is a factor.

If you just add 2gb more RAM, you could have compatibility issues or cost yourself the rest of the RAM running in triple channel, which could itself lower performance. And if you replace the RAM you're spending a lot on upgrading an out of date system.

 

[JJ_Young]

Ok. Thanks