quote:
I'm probably going 16gb for the new build, but you typically recommend as little RAM as you can get away with, rather than overbuying - simply because most people overbuy ram (and, to a lesser degree, processor and power supply) - I try to heed that when setting budget lines for various compenents.

My rule of thumb is "8GB unless you know why you, specifically, would need more than that." As you know, it's very simple to monitor RAM usage and decide whether you need to order more, but nobody seems to do it.

quote:
First G.Skill memory (I'm a Crucial/Corsair guy)

Ah, well you'll come to find that as long as you aren't overclocking beyond its rated specs, RAM is RAM (and long gone are the days where you need the fastest and most stable RAM to handle the FSB increases for CPU overclocks). However, unlike most other components--where you can get a general idea of who's doing the actual manufacturing vs. who's just assembling/branding--the RAM market is little cloudier to me. Not much information readily available online about which ones make their own chips and whom they supply to.

Micron/Crucial, Hynix, Samsung, and Winbond are big manufacturers, but there are probably many more that make perfectly fine modules. G.Skill, I'm not sure who supplies their chips or PCBs but their product is impeccable. And we all know Corsair doesn't make anything at all, but again you'd be hard pressed to find a bad Corsair product.

This post was edited on 9/12/15 at 1:32 pm

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Posted by Ace Midnight

Between sanity and madness

Member since Dec 2006

89745 posts

Posted on 9/12/15 at 1:45 pm to ILikeLSUToo

quote:
And we all know Corsair doesn't make anything at all, but again you'd be hard pressed to find a bad Corsair product.

I'm actually considering getting a "no kidding" Seasonic power supply this time, but I'm trying to justify the "Why?" I've been happy with all my Corsair-branded products (even the ones made by Seasonic

), and as you say, Corsair must be doing something right by being selective as to what they apply their name.

quote:
the RAM market is little cloudier to me.

It's always been kind of a wild west over there - Taiwanese-made used to be the big deal - unless I'm mistaken, Crucial/Micron built their reputation on being selective about which factory and even production line to get their dimms - and I think, at the end of the day, it was that quality control that gained them their market among some OEMs and hobbyists back in the heady, early days of "build your own".

quote:
As you know, it's very simple to monitor RAM usage and decide whether you need to order more, but nobody seems to do it.

Sure - and in my case, the usual suspects are:

1. Memory leaks (and more ram just kicks that problem down the road a few minutes/hours/days) - you eventually get a process failure or glitch that has to be resolved, no matter how much RAM you carry

2. The Sims 3 or Skyrim, minimized with browser windows and openoffice documents - at some point, I have an almost 6 year old AMD processor and 4gb of RAM - something is not going to play well something else.

3. Streaming media with other browser tabs/sessions open (and, like I said, I often have Firefox with many tabs open alongside IE - as the .mil and .gov sites just work better through IE).

So - when I finally pull the trigger, and if I ultimately decide on 16gb - it will be like "RAM insurance" to make sure I don't have to worry about it for situations 2 and 3 above.

I have much more significant issues with GPU and processor bottlenecks (and heck, even spinning drives) than I do with my 4gb, so 8 would probably not be short for the build.

At least I've talked myself down from 32gb or more, right? Progress - we should take it at this point.

This post was edited on 9/12/15 at 1:46 pm

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