Ram advice?

[preed]

One of my friends is selling parts of his computer has he no longer requires his PC. He doesn't own a gaming PC, it was mainly used for music production etc, and the only thing I am really interested in is his RAM.

I am in the midst of a new build so trying to do it on the cheap would this ram be worth the money, and if so, how much should I be offering him? I was thinking £70ish

I already have a i5 4760k and most likely looking at a GTX 770.

[joeee353]

I think that if you can get that RAM off your friend for around £70ish, that would be a very good deal. It is easily more than enough to last you for a while, and the 1866MHz speed is something you may find useful. It doesn't provide huge performance increases, but it can improve performance a bit.

[Bonebreaker777]

The linked memory is 1600Mhz at CL10. Even if 16GB, you would benefit more from a 8GB kit either overclocked or faster straight up.
Got good experience with Crucial Ballistix lately (from 1600Mhz CL8 @ 2133Mhz CL11 default voltage on Haswell latest).
That's what I think.
I preceive memory like food. If you have enough not to starve, it rather pays to have quality vs. quantity. If your PC couldn't utilize more that 8GB, higher speed would be definitely more beneficial.

[Distincthd]

I've got 16GB of 1333Mhz RAM. I can tell you that you will never pass 10GB of RAM usage (even for usage such as video rendering or gaming or desktop application work). I used to think "well more must be better" when deciding between 8GB of 1600mhz ram and 16GB of 1333mhz ram but trust me, you're better off getting an 8GB kit fresh out of the box rather than that.

[Bonebreaker777]

And if it is not going into a Z87 board (only allowing RAM OC) you can still play with the timings.

[Agent]

I can tell you that you will never pass 10GB of RAM usage (even for usage such as video rendering or gaming or desktop application work).

I can easily exceed 16GB with some of the video rendering / editing I've been doing - it just depends on what you're actually doing. For this kind of money though this is a no brainer. Good RAM, fine speed and reasonable price. Buy it.

[Bonebreaker777]

Yes but he will not use this machine with the newly acquired 16GB for video editing or anything even semi-professional (no offense if you plan to use it exactly for that).
For games he would definitely benefit from higher speed rather that quantity.

[Agent]

Yes but he will not use this machine with the newly acquired 16GB for video editing or anything even semi-professional (no offense if you plan to use it exactly for that).
For games he would definitely benefit from higher speed rather that quantity.

With a i5 4760k & GTX 770 the real world difference in games is going to be negligible, even with the fastest RAM.

See this video for some stats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0L_KFKJYvg

Going from 1333 to 2133 gives an average increase of around 1 FPS. The theoretical benchmark numbers look nice though

You might be able to squeeze a bit more out with tighter timings, but again, you're talking about fairly tiny amounts in real world usage.

You can also see some RAM scaling examples here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/S...V-3V4G3/7.html

RAM speed hasn't made a huge difference since Sandy (although many would argue even since the Core2 days). Endless reviews of RAM show this. I'm really not sure what you mean with "definitely benefit from higher speed rather that quantity" here. Could you cite some examples of where this would be the case for the OP?

[Bonebreaker777]

I still think it is better to have faster memory, even if I do admin that he will see very little difference. But that difference should still count for more that the unused amount of memory he will have.

The test been done on a IB CPU based system. Wonder if the differences would be bigger or smaller with a Haswell based system.

[Distincthd]

I still believe 8GB @ 1600mhz will allow him to spend a lot more on worthy components such as a better graphics card and come on I don't know what type of rendering that will max out 16GB of RAM (maybe 3D rendering and SOME video renders) that you will be doing yourself so i'd say save the money, get a 8GB kit and just buy a better graphics card with the left over money.

[Agent]

I still think it is better to have faster memory, even if I do admin that he will see very little difference...

Keep thinking it - that's your call, but the numbers just don't add up.

The RAM his friend is offering is double the amount and costing just a little over a tenner more. That's not even a taxi ride home from a night out.

I'm honestly bemused at why anyone would suggest not going for it given the cost of the other parts listed.

[ekamdeep]

i am running 16gb g.skill 1600mhz my pc never got above 4gb in gaming also so no fun in getting 16gb ram 8gb is more than enough
i oced my ram to 1900mhz did not see any noticeable difference in performance

[Bonebreaker777]

Wonder is tightening the timings instead of overclocking (can't do it on all platforms).
Let's say instead of the classic 9-9-9-27, to have some 7-7-7-20 (if you manage of course).