16GB enough or more better?

Hi,
So I want to buy a laptop gaming. Probably the Sager with the Graphic Card 870m 6Gg and 16g RAM.
For 50$ I can upgrade it to 24g RAM.
My main purpose of this laptop is for, obviously, gaming and movies. I work sometimes with it but only with Excel and MOffice.
Even when multi-tasking, like when my skype open while playing League of Legend, steam in the background, youtube and facebook open and my Winamp playing music. My laptop barely rush.
Most of game today ask in recommended setting 4Gg to 8Gg (for big one). And in 5 years (because I got my Asus g51 with 4Gg Ram since 5 years), the game past to 2Gg to 6Gg RAM.
Now I cannot run most of the game because mainly of my graphic card (260m , before it was really good ). And now I don't have even enough RAM to run them.
I was wondering if having 24Gg RAM will help me run my games better or it's only the job of the graphic card ???
I feel like 16Gg RAM is more than enough, even for the next 5 years. Because I want to keep my next laptop for 5 years.

BUT, If I take the 880m, is it worth it to upgrade with a 24g RAM.
Anyway, I feel like the 880m is overprice compare to the 870m. 880m is barely more powerful.

 

There's no point in getting anything past 8GB of RAM for what you describe. Game performance is primarily the responsibility of the GPU (and, to some extent, the CPU).

You're right in that the 880M is overpriced compared to the 870M (same could be said about the 870M and 860M too, depending on the situation). GPU performance does *not* scale linearly with GPU price, especially in the upper end of the GPU scale.

 

I have 24 GB and most of the time, according to task manager, it shows 21 GB is free so I think 24 GB is overkill.

Plus, either get 16 GB or 32 GB to stay in Dual Channel mode across all SODIMMs otherwise a weird configuration such as 24 GB will cause the first pair to run in Dual Channel and the 2nd pair running in Single Channel using Intel's Flex mode. Always get matching pairs so that would main 8, 16, or 32

 

Thanks you for your reply.
I looked around and people having high RAM is because they're working in animation, or video programming or any similar stuff.
I'll go with the 16Gg only because Watch Dogs ask me 6 or 8G RAM .

 

Those system requirements are for the entire system. What they mean is that your whole computer needs at least 6-8GB of RAM, not that Watch Dogs uses 6-8GB of RAM.

 

How much work a platform can do is directly related to the capabilities of the cpu and the amount of RAM installed. When considering keeping the system for half a decade, the (very) small cost to max out the RAM is pennies per day and I would recommend doing so in a heartbeat.

The benefits of maxing out the RAM will be mostly dependent on choosing a higher end i7 Quad Core Eight Thread cpu and then installing Windows 8.1 Update 1 and also disabling the pagefile, the hibernation file and also using an large capacity SSD for your new platform's O/S drive with ~30% OP'ing. The SanDisk Extreme II 480GB is highly recommended. If your workflow will not stress the storage subsystem except for capacity: the 1TB Samsung EVO is also recommended for a 'light' usage style (which I think your workflow qualifies for).

With the above points as a given; a 32GB system is much better equipped to handle anything that will be thrown at it in the next half decade including O/S updates, program/game updates and even changing workflow criteria as you explore different fields possible with your new system.

Not only will you get the most responsive and lag-free experience possible every day of ownership (from day one) for just pennies extra a day over five+ years, but you may well get the chance to continue using this same system well past when you thought you would be upgrading to a newer one too.

Overkill is subjective: what I always suggest to my clients is to buy as much computer (cpu+ram) as possible within their budget - this advice has never steered anyone wrong.

Worse case: you might sell the system in a few years for a few extra dollars based on how much performance it will offer a future buyer, still. But you'll also have enjoyed (and have been spoiled) with the most responsive and multitasking capable system all that time too.

For ~5% of the total system cost I think it is a no-brainer: max out the RAM just like you've maxed out the cost/benefits of the gpu too.


Hope this helps.

Good luck.

 

32GB ram actually decreases CPU performance by about 5-7% due to increased strain on the memory controller. (it's still dual channel but 2 banks per channel as opposed to 1 bank per channel) System also felt a little bit less snappy compared to using 16GB ram but that's very subjective.

Given your workflow I don't foresee you'll ever come close to using 24GB or even 16GB of ram. Just to give you an idea, even with 10 tabs open in Firefox, music looping in the background, and playing Crysis 3 all at the same time, ram usage still only peaks at about 6GB. 16GB will be more than enough for gaming, and by the time games get to a point where 16GB of ram isn't enough, your GPU would long have been obsolete. But for $50 the cost is reasonable, so it's your call.

 

OP, 16GB RAM is more than enough.. There is literally no use for more than that... As the 870M/880M, get the 880M so you don't have to upgrade in the future.. Once an unlocked vBIOS is released, the overclocked 880M will be unbeatable and easily last longer than even an overclocked 870M...

 

Well, to be fair, there's literally no use for over 16GB for OP's uses. Scientific computing, heavy CAD work, that sort of thing will eat RAM. However, for gaming, I'd say 8GB is plenty and 16GB is starting to push it to "I'm just burning cash".

 

Yeah, if you want to go higher than 8, 16 GB is the max. I run 16 @ 1866 in my desktop and the most I've used is 11. I had a ton of stuff running and was doing some Paintshop stuff. Other than that I rarely use more than 6 even when gaming.

 

I upgraded to 8GB in 2010 and I still use 8GB in 2014. If you have a use for more than 8GB of RAM, you will know it.

 

For the described usage scenario 24GB RAM is indeed overkill today and in the next two to four years (my guess, purely subjective).
If you don't use it (which you won't in your scenario) you effectively only make a monetary gift to the parties involved in making & selling the device to you. In other word: It's like throwing money away.

And it's not the only disadvantage vs. 16GB:
- You usually can't profit from the dual channel architecture = the machine is slightly slower. With a discrete GPU this is probably not as drastic as with an integrated one but you still sacrifice speed.
- If enabled the hibernation file will be larger, even if you don't use it (your RAM usually isn't filled to the brim). With an HD it's usually not a problem but a smallish SSD could
- More RAM chips use more energy so it will (slightly) reduce battery time. May not affect you if you keep it plugged in most of the time.

Personally, I'd get 16GB and not 8GB with this scenario as you don't need to spend time/money upgrading the machine later.
Why do I think so? Because PS4 and Xbox One come with 8GB and will set the standard for PC games. They are now very similar to PCs (compared to the PS3/X360 generation) but they of course miss the resource-wasting OS so add another 8GB for it and - voila! - you get 16GB.
The next big step will be the console generation after it - provided we still haven't been converted to game streamers...

 

n=1, do you have any links to show this?

I might agree to slightly less snap - but the real horsepower the platform as a whole gives goes up by an impressive amount (over 60% in my estimation).

With the memory controller contained within the cpu with modern platforms I don't think the 'strain' would be anywhere near 5-7% - but I am open to learn otherwise.

 

No links, just personal experience from tinkering with different setups.

If you can actually utilize beyond 16GB of ram then yeah, no doubt the computer as a whole will be more powerful. But if your workload is such that it never goes beyond 16 (or even 8GB) of ram, then 32GB will just slow you down so to speak.

I should add that this difference is not noticeable in daily usage outside of computation intensive tasks (eg scientific modelling). Synthetic benchmarks can also pick up on this difference.

 

n=1, thanks for expanding on that.

I will have to try to remember/make time to test this aspect next time I'm setting up a system with 32/64GB of RAM (or more!).

All I know is that just navigating the O/S I'm already clicking the next link while waiting the 0.2 seconds for the first link to open. Lol...


Multitasking has become a 'must-have' not a 'nice to have' when me and computers mix.

 

Which is why I always say I can't wait for the day native hardware RAMDisks become a practical reality.