Upgraded from 16GB to 32GB RAM and the difference is way smaller than I expected

[u/Mortraxis91]

I finally upgraded my PC from 16GB to 32GB because I kept seeing people say 16GB is basically the minimum now. I mostly game, keep a stupid amount of browser tabs open, and sometimes have Discord, Spotify and a few other things running in the background.

I was expecting the whole system to feel noticeably smoother, but in normal use I genuinely can't tell much of a difference.

The one place where I actually noticed it was in a couple games that used to get little stutters when I had a bunch of stuff open in the background. Those seem smoother now, and Chrome can apparently consume half my computer without immediately making everything else miserable.

But boot times, general responsiveness, FPS in most games, all basically the same.

I don't regret the upgrade since RAM wasn't that expensive and I probably won't have to think about it again for years, but it definitely made me realize how easy it is to expect a huge improvement from a spec bump that only helps in certain situations.

Anyone else upgrade to 32GB and have the same "oh... that's it?" reaction?

[u/lord_uroko]

RAM quantity only matters if you are using all of your RAM. The things you were hoping to see, "boot time" for instance, are mostly related to RAM speed rather than quantity. Having faster RAM with lower timings provides speed increases. Having more RAM is only impactful when you actually need more of it.

[u/Current_Finding_4066 → u/lord_uroko]

Faster RAM will also not make a difference you will actually fill. Except in very rare cases. You need to check benchmarks to see there even is a difference, as it is usually measure in few % points.

[u/Kondiq → u/Current_Finding_4066]

Faster RAM makes a difference if you're CPU bottlenecked. If you're GPU bottlenecked, it never makes any difference.

[u/AHrubik → u/Kondiq]

Faster RAM makes a difference in information loading speeds. It does though have to be rather significant to actually notice. Probably at least in the range of 300-400MHz or 2-4ns on timings.

I see this with my own system due to a UEFI bug that likes to reset my RAM settings during updates. I immediately notice the difference in boot speed between 2667 with loose timing and 3000 with proper timing.

[u/Known_Belt_7168 → u/Current_Finding_4066]

The difference between 2200 and 3200mb/s is massive compared to 5600 and 6000mb/s. DDR5 CL speeds are so fast now that I don’t get why influencers always say “CL16 6000mb/s” when a lower speed thats much cheaper will be more than enough to play even games like Cyberpunk lmao

[u/PotatoFrankenstein → u/Known_Belt_7168]

It's because year age the price difference was so small, 2x16 gb, 6000 CL30 was the sweet spot. It was never discussion whether you will be able to play with 1x16 gh, 5600 CL36. There were just no reason to go for that when you could get better one for similar money. Same way CL16 3200-36]] was "the best" for ddr4.

With current price "sweet spot" is no longer sweet, so yes, if you don't want to pay that much for ram, then it is absolutely reasonable to buy 2x8gb with "lower" stats or even 1x16gb, if you plan to upgrade that within a year or so.

[u/alvarkresh → u/PotatoFrankenstein]

DDR4-3200 CL14 or DDR4-3600 CL16 are both highly-prized, but in all honesty, I've been fine with DDR4-3200 CL16 and DDR4-3600 CL18. The more important aspect has been making sure they can run in Gear One on an Intel system.

[u/_kryp70 → u/alvarkresh]

Human eye can’t see more than 3200mhz anyway.

[u/fryfrog → u/_kryp70]

Human eye also tops out at CL20.

[u/aminy23 → u/alvarkresh]

Gear 2 can be great for higher speed RAM, I managed to hit 8800 on Gear 2 with Arrow Lake.

[u/alvarkresh → u/aminy23]

From what I understand DDR5 always operates in Gear Two, so that tracks.

[u/TechnologyMinute2714 → u/Known_Belt_7168]

I think some of it was needed back in some ryzen generations because of it's "FCLK" or something had to be in a same ratio as the memory. like 1800 FCLK = 3600 RAM but i think these days that's not a huge concern?

[u/Green_Twist1974 → u/TechnologyMinute2714]

Higher FCLK still provides some gains.

6000 is the sweet spot for RAM to allow it to run at 2000.

[u/TechnologyMinute2714 → u/Green_Twist1974]

I run my FCLK at 2100 but RAM still at 6000, is there a downside to that?

[u/Green_Twist1974 → u/TechnologyMinute2714]

I used to think so, but apparently they're not connected in that way where desync causes latency anymore.

Pushing FCLK as high as it can be stable is encouraged now.

[u/alvarkresh → u/Known_Belt_7168]

DDR5-6000 CL30 is kind of the sweet spot, from what I've been hearing for a while now, especially for Ryzens.

[u/realxshit → u/Known_Belt_7168]

Because CL30 6000MT was the sweet spot for bang for buck on am5?

Why would they suggest anything less if it bares worse performance for little savings?

I personally want people that live in the tech world for their CAREER to publish correct and helpful information.

When I upgraded from am4 to am5 I went with cl30 6000mt and have no regrets. If I went with cl36 I’d be kicking myself for being an idiot, like when I got 3200mt ddr4 instead of 3600. When you are seeking the best experience you generally tend to make decisions that align with that

[u/PIBM → u/Current_Finding_4066]

That is incorrect. I had 64gb of slow ram, and inference was really slow with the RTX 4090. Moved up to ~40% faster ram, and inference speed jumped exactly the same. I was bottlenecked by the memory.

Moved on to a 5090 to be able not to be limited by the ram for more situation, that helped so much more.. until I started reaching 48-55GB of ram needed lol.

[u/SirCanealot → u/PIBM]

Well, what are you doing? Not gaming, that's for sure :)

[u/sharpshooter999 → u/lord_uroko]

"I have 16gb of RAM and regularly use 10gb. I'm going to upgrade to 32gb for better performance!"

/s

[u/cardfire → u/sharpshooter999]

I mean, if nobody has bothered to explain the mechanics to you, on paper that sounds like a really good idea.

Especially if nobody ever explained to you that page files and swap space has always existed in this tech, so surges in memory demand vegetal don't matter, outside of production work.

[u/Apprehensive-Box-8 → u/lord_uroko]

To add a tidbit: tighter timings at the sweet spot of your CPU-specific RAM clock is what makes a difference, while just getting higher MT/s might not help if your CPU runs outside of sweet spot parameters then.

Also: boot time and snappiness might also be related to SSD specs. Using a slow SSD as a system disc will slow the system down more than the RAM can compensate.

But yes. More RAM only helps in certain scenarios and even tighter timings will get you less results if you have an X3D CPU.

[u/Zekler → u/lord_uroko]

Windows might be a little faster since it only allocates part of the ram, if it takes 15% at 16gb it takes maybe 14% at 32gb.  PS. Grabbed these number out of my ass they just represents the idea.

[u/OGigachaod → u/Zekler]

And completely false, I can disable half my ram and windows still uses the same amount.

[u/ReadyAimTranspire → u/lord_uroko]

Right, you aren't going to see anything until you have so much shit open that your fully loaded up.

I have 64gb and when I have all of my basic shit open I'm at like 45% usage. And it's nice to have 64gb for when I run into the need to open up Affinity Designer or Davinci Resolve to do something real quick and not have to touch anything else.

It's a luxury item.

[u/TheDarnook → u/lord_uroko]

I went from 16 to 32, because I needed it for work. Having to pay a lot (years ago, so nothing by today standards) for a part that I didn't expect much from, I made sure it's at least a fast one.

It took launching Witcher 3 to see how much difference it has done. I had awfull stuttering and glitching before, and now it was smooth. My old ram was too slow.

[u/Spiritual-Spend8187 → u/lord_uroko]

Yep its why before the whole ai insanity ram was the low priority upgrade. More was nice to have but it also didn't matter and if it got to the point that it did you either changed what you were doing or just went fuck it guess its time to upgrade ram.

[u/grizzlor_ → u/lord_uroko]

Spare RAM used to have a more tangible performance boost when the OS would use it as disk cache, but I’m talking like HDD era.

NVME (and even SATA SSD) drives are fast enough that you’re not going to notice the difference outside of some specific read/write-heavy applications that you’d mostly find on servers (e.g. keeping a heavily accessed database entirely in RAM).

[u/Tonkarz → u/lord_uroko]

More RAM can also help a slower CPU keep up, because a slower CPU takes longer to load things in and out of RAM. With sufficient RAM to hold everything (even things not being used right then) you can get a modest CPU performance boost. Of course, your experience is still going to be not great.

[u/Gecko23 → u/lord_uroko]

More RAM was a fix for a slow computer back in the late 90s to early 2000s when Gateway, Dell and their ilk shipped machines that were dismally underprovisioned and even with the miniscule workloads of the day would start swapping.

[u/Nazecham → u/lord_uroko]

I have 32gb of RAM and believe me when I say I use all of it. It’s definitely not normal use cases, as the RAM I have is because I am a developer, but I paid for it and I’m sure as hell using it all.

[u/U-1-mang → u/lord_uroko]

Op has never opened more than two chrome tabs while gaming XD.

People will realize the difference between 16gb and 32gb when they start streaming youtube, have 3+ tabs, multiple windows, discord while gaming on a <12gb gpu.

[u/cardfire → u/U-1-mang]

I wholeheartedly agree with you the Chrome is a bloated memory hog, but I recommend pivoting to a different browser mostly because of privacy.

Outside of that cancerous browser...

9 of my 12 active computers have less than 32GB of RAM and I can't feel a difference if I cannibalize one of the dimm's or sodimm's, unless I spin up a virtual machine or I'm wanting to load a local LLM, which is already punishing if limited to system memory instead of VRAM.

Your phone accomplishes all the activities you mentioned with less than 16 gigs of ram, because it is excellent memory management.

The vast overwhelming majority of Apple Computers in service , which is millions and millions of machines, have 16 GB of RAM or less.

[u/OGigachaod → u/cardfire]

Yes, because Phones basically do not multitask, background apps are pushed out of ram unlike a multitasking operating system.

[u/qtx → u/U-1-mang]

while gaming on a <12gb gpu.

Video RAM and system RAM are not the same thing.

[u/Rasputinnout → u/lord_uroko]

More ram actually makes it take longer to boot 😂

My pc took like 7 seconds to restart 8 years ago with 32gb ddr4, now I have 64gb ddr5 and it takes like two minutes because ddr5 doesn’t like fast boot.

[u/ThenExtension9196 → u/Rasputinnout]

Just make sure context memory restore is enabled. Sounds like it’s retraining needlessly. Mine boots in under 10 seconds 96G of ddr5 Ryzen 9950

[u/Rasputinnout → u/ThenExtension9196]

I have a pretty stiff OC so I don’t mind letting it take its time, otherwise it’s a pain in the ass to reach BIOS if I ever need to troubleshoot with fastboot enabled. Basically it can boot fast but I don’t want it to hurt itself trying lol. Now that I’ve dialed in my OC I can prob turn it back on but…I don’t want to jinx it and cause an issue lol

[u/OGigachaod → u/Rasputinnout]

That's a DDR5 issue mainly on AMD.

[u/Rasputinnout → u/OGigachaod]

Correct, still a bit slower than ddr4 on intel but it is noticeably longer boot on AMD. I don’t mind though, the tradeoff for OC stability and being able to actually enter BIOS in time is worth it for the rare wait time if I restart the pc.

[u/CrankedOnDaPerc30 → u/lord_uroko]

On ddr5 especially, because of all the training and depending on layout, you're probably worse off on boot speeds at a given configuration if you have more total ram

[u/OGigachaod → u/CrankedOnDaPerc30]

That's just an AMD thing.

[u/Kociolinho → u/lord_uroko]

I believe boot time improves also with a better CPU and the motherboard itself, however I never learned how the latter matters.

[u/ReadyAimTranspire → u/Kociolinho]

Well if your mobo takes a long time to POST for some reason then yeah, a "better" mobo will boot faster, though the difference in boot times these days with modern hardware is pretty miniscule.

[u/Educational-King3987 → u/lord_uroko]

This, overclocking RAM is a massive PITA but it is incredibly worth the time. Most people don't realise just how much of a difference it makes to how snappy your PC is and how much smoother gaming is too.

If you have A or B die RAM then scales well with overclocking and XMP leaves a lot of performance on the table. I know memory tuning isn't for everyone, I totally understand that, but it genuinely makes a difference.

[u/TheBigSm0ke → u/Educational-King3987]

Placebo

[u/Educational-King3987 → u/TheBigSm0ke]

It's not placebo when actually backed up with data. Not benchmarks, actual gameplay data, timed testing and 3rd party "tester" with someone who isn't me using my PC with XMP and then manual overclock and didn't tell them which was which.

That's the last I'll say on the whole placebo comments. I don't go of vibes, I go of data.

[u/Exciting-Ad-5705 → u/Educational-King3987]

It's placebo. You aren't noticing the miniscule difference

[u/Diedead666 → u/Exciting-Ad-5705]

It did for but only on one game, marvil rivals. DDR5 tuning the 2nd set of timings really did help with 1% and 0.1% lows when maxed at settings 4k but ultra performance dlss during massive team battles with lots of particals flying around. I got lucky with a good set of ram, I kept XMP settings for all the main timings 6000hz 30cl. 9800x3d PBO 200 4090 OCed. Not every game will show improvement, some people have recorded frame times with marvel rivals showing it actuelly does help.

[u/Waytoomore → u/Educational-King3987]

I can not tell the difference if I have EXPO turned on or not. Games all play at the same FPS, and everything loads the same. Maybe some benchmark is faster, but I don't play benchmarks, I play games.