More RAM...Recommendations?

[Bloodfire]

I have been looking into upgrading my system memory but would like a second opinion from the community.

I went through Crucial's website to kinda get a base to go off of.

The site recommends 4, 4 GB sticks 240 pin DIMM DDR3 PC3-10600

The PC I run is a factory built ASUS Essentio CG5275 Desktop/PC

It can't support ECC Memory
It can support Dual channel
I do run Win7 64-bit
Motherboard seems to only support about 16 GB

Right now I am considering Crucial's choice, their set of 4 sticks is 249.99. If anyone has any ideas on a good brand, at a good price, please let me know.

Also, while I have cards on the table... will upgrading this RAM help my system pick up any slack from the 1 GB Video card I have, such as running Crysis at higher settings? Kinda wanna drag the life of this PC out as best I can with the motherboard I got, if possible.

Edit: Video Card is a ATI Radeon 5770 HD

[Hyan]

Sounds like overkill. Depends what you do with the PC though.

[Waraji]

Right now, I can't possibly see why anything more than 6-8 gigs of memory. I would go for a 2 pack in your case (2x4gb) will be cheaper and more practical, and you can easily bump it up to 16 sometime in the future when it would possibly make a difference AND be cheaper as well as dual channel gets sort of phased out.

[Soupbowl]

6-8 gigs, I doubt you will even hit, more then that is such a waste.

[Pikarya]

6-8 gigs, I doubt you will even hit, more then that is such a waste.

This, spend your money on other components like faster OS drives (RAID/SSD?) or something. Anything over 6/8 is overshot.

[Isiolia]

4GB for dual channel, 6GB for triple channel. Unless you're doing research computing or high end content creation you really shouldn't need more than that right now.

Second that you should look into your system drive setup if you want to put money into your PC. An SSD is often one of the most effective upgrades for a perceptible performance boost, though it probably won't do a ton for Crysis fps (but then neither will RAM).

[Olo401]

Your machine (should have) 8 gigs in it already. You don't need more memory, and more isn't going to make a difference with Crysis. Actually your real bottleneck is the video card. The 5770 is a great gaming GPU for the price, but still it is a 128-bit card in a time when 256-bit is becoming the new baseline. So if you wanted to go all out you'll probably want to get a 5850, 5870, or GTX 470.

Also you said you don't run Win7 64-bit, tho the specs say it comes with it installed. What're you running instead?

[Amastacia]

So just some food for thought.

I did some really quick, non-scientific testing.

My main monitor is a 26" with 1920x1200 native resolution. Video card is a 5870. I try to (and pretty much can) run things at native, with settings turned way up.

RAM consumption across several games, with the highest graphical settings my monitor and game options will permit, was around 1GB. I don't have Crysis installed to check, but I made sure to test several game engines, and results were pretty consistent.

Olo's got you pointed in the right direction. More RAM will not make a big difference. Upgrading a 5700 series card to a 5800 series, especially if your main display is 24" or larger, will be a more cost-effective change.

Edit: And as it was a quick and unscientific test, I left everything else I had running in the background. My normal, steady-state Win7 64 bit memory consumption without a game running is ~1.2GB. With 4GB in my system and a game sucking down a gig, I'm still usually parked on a little under 2GB free.

[Bloodfire]

Your machine (should have) 8 gigs in it already. You don't need more memory, and more isn't going to make a difference with Crysis. Actually your real bottleneck is the video card. The 5770 is a great gaming GPU for the price, but still it is a 128-bit card in a time when 256-bit is becoming the new baseline. So if you wanted to go all out you'll probably want to get a 5850, 5870, or GTX 470.

Also you said you don't run Win7 64-bit, tho the specs say it comes with it installed. What're you running instead?

Yea I do already have 8 GB for system memory.

Your suggestion looks on the line for solving my issue. I may just upgrade the video card instead. I thought I had a good card, with the 1 GB and all but was unfamiliar with the Bit sizes.

As far as your question with the OS, I run win7 64 bit.

My biggest concern, honestly is I want to ensure I have a step above the recommended specs for Starcraft 2 and FFXIV. Crysis is technically a benchmark tool for myself.

By the way would maybe overclocking the video card improve the frame rate in Crysis? I don't wanna fry the card by fucking with the settings when I am unfamiliar with overclocking.

Thank you everyone for your input.

[Olo401]

It would definitely make a difference of a few fps to do a GPU overclock, and it's a lot easier than doing a CPU overclock since the controls are all in Catalyst. You also shouldn't have to worry about overheating since most GPUs are designed to run hot and have enough cooling to handle it (@ full load and 100% fan speed you shouldn't see more than 85-90C). Of course, toning down the antialiasing would help as well.. try 4AA instead of 8 or 16.

Also I'm not sure if Crysis is coded for multithread, but if it's not then you might be getting a slight performance hit since your CPU is threaded (i5-650 is dual-core dual-thread).

[Bloodfire]

It would definitely make a difference of a few fps to do a GPU overclock, and it's a lot easier than doing a CPU overclock since the controls are all in Catalyst. You also shouldn't have to worry about overheating since most GPUs are designed to run hot and have enough cooling to handle it (@ full load and 100% fan speed you shouldn't see more than 85-90C). Of course, toning down the antialiasing would help as well.. try 4AA instead of 8 or 16.

Overclocking to max really did improve frame rate significantly, went from average 8-10 FPS to 27-30 when set on Very High 0 AA in-game 2x AA on catalyst. Though I did get some freeze spikes followed by a subsequent Game crash Perhaps too much power?

CPU is threaded (i5-650 is dual-core dual-thread).

I thought the i5 was a quad core equivalent?

Edit: checked Intel's website and the i5-650 has actually 2 cores http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43546
I sincerely hope I won't require a CPU upgrade, I kinda wanted a quad core and that's what the guy at Best Buy said this system was.