Prices are going up and dont look to be coming down soon for ddr3, is 8GB still enough or should I get some more together and buy another 2 4GB sticks and go 16?
I'll be rebuilding in 2016 when I get out of college with my masters and by then ddr4 should be out if I remember correctly so thats not too far to hold off on 16GB I guess.
Yup 8GB is still enough, however if you do alot of renderings and productivity type things you may want to invest in 16GB.
ddr4 won't be that exciting. faster speeds, more latency, and lower power consumption. nothing we havn't seen before.
2016 sounds like a good time to upgrade.
8GB is still fine. I'm using 8GB, even minecraft all the settings on the most taxing and a 512x texture pack works absolutely fine.
8 GB of RAM is more than enough. I've seen plenty of tests where out of 8GB of RAM, only 5 GB are being used. In 16 GB, only 6 GB are being used in most games. I have 4 GB of DDR2 but I'm upgrading to 8GB of 2133MHz DDR3 on christmas.
I'd say you should wait a little while to upgrade your RAM, since DDR3 may become irrelevant in the near future. Unless you really want it, then knock yourself out, because it's not a bad thing to have 16 gigs.
[EDIT] Here's a link to some nice however cheap RAM:
[LINK 1] Okay, that one was a joke. Here's the real link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=ddr3&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=100
Why would ram become irrelevant?
Heck I've not seen any games use more than 3 for me yet. I'd say 8GB is enough for GAMING. But productivity maybe consider more.
I'm talking about DDR3 becoming irrelevant in upgrades. If you upgrade your computer when DDR4 comes out and it's 100 times better than DDR3 (though that's unlikely), then it makes sense to get DDR4. I'm referring to a full system upgrade, not just the RAM.
Oh, okay, I see what you are saying now. Eh I'm gonna be upgrading everything in 2.5-3 years so ddr4 will be out then. Maybe I'll just grab a 290 this summer and call it good until 2016.
The R9 270 is so damn cheap right now, I'll probably be getting one of those with money from christmas this year.
DDR4 probably isn't going to make DDR3 obsolete. System RAM speed just doesn't do that much for game performance, and unless DDR4 becomes at most marginally more expensive than DDR3 then any performance benefits just aren't going to be cost-effective.
Maybe DDR4 would be a good thing to look at in systems designed around APU's, but I don't think it's going to matter at all, otherwise.
As soon as the new gen of consoles gain enough market share only then you will see games that will tax 8gig (or perhaps a little bit over), the reason being is that they will be completely targeted towards the now 'common' spec.
I think it is possible that console ports may require over 8 gig on the next gen as windows simply isnt as streamlined as the os's on the consoles and will need a fair bit more just for the 'privilege' of running it under windows :D.
The above is just an assumption though.
In short I think it will be possible to run into next gen console ports that will require slightly more than 8 but i don't think you will run into any games that will manage to saturate 16
I honestly dont think that'll happen too soon though. I mean the consoles have only like 5.5GB of that ram usable right? And thats for both system and video memory. Still though thats probably a couple years away and probably at higher settings at the start of it.