Improving my RAM and I am not sure what I need to take into account

[weker]

Hi there I plan to buy some new RAM for my PC, I currently have 6GB made from 2x2GB and 2x1GB (Built for me I didn't select it the first time) with more recent games my computer has been put under strain with occasional annoying hiccups so I am aiming to find a solution through upgrading my RAM.
I am still uneasy with computer components so is there anything I need to take into consideration when buying RAM? (some friends "think" that having different amounts of RAM may cause issues, but my computer has worked with the 2x2+1x2 setup I have atm)
Also is there any recommendations you can give me on what to get, I am aiming for 12 GB in advance to pay off later on.

 

[Supernova1138]

6GB should be sufficient for gaming. What CPU and Graphics card do you have? Which games are giving you trouble, and what resolution are you running them at? If you are running into performance issues when gaming it usually means the CPU or graphics card isn't up to snuff. Lack of RAM can cause poor performance, but unless you are running lots of stuff in the background while playing, you shouldn't be running out of RAM with 6GB.

 

[weker]

6GB should be sufficient for gaming. What CPU and Graphics card do you have? Which games are giving you trouble, and what resolution are you running them at? If you are running into performance issues when gaming it usually means the CPU or graphics card isn't up to snuff. Lack of RAM can cause poor performance, but unless you are running lots of stuff in the background while playing, you shouldn't be running out of RAM with 6GB.

Snip

I am running mostly for TERA, atm I use a GTX 460 and a low end I7, the system monitoring tools that I have running say my RAM goes to like 70-90% in use and it's always high when I have hiccups during gameplay.
I am sure it's an issue with RAM as my friends much much worse tech but the majority have around 8GB RAM so it's the only thing I can really point to being an issue.

 

[ReadyAmyFire]

Aren't all programs limited to 1-2BG RAM* anyway? So the only way to run out would be to run more than one game?

*Except SupCom, which I remember having to patch to 4GB because things can get quite big.

 

[Supernova1138]

6GB should be sufficient for gaming. What CPU and Graphics card do you have? Which games are giving you trouble, and what resolution are you running them at? If you are running into performance issues when gaming it usually means the CPU or graphics card isn't up to snuff. Lack of RAM can cause poor performance, but unless you are running lots of stuff in the background while playing, you shouldn't be running out of RAM with 6GB.

Snip

I am running mostly for TERA, atm I use a GTX 460 and a low end I7, the system monitoring tools that I have running say my RAM goes to like 70-90% in use and it's always high when I have hiccups during gameplay.
I am sure it's an issue with RAM as my friends much much worse tech but the majority have around 8GB RAM so it's the only thing I can really point to being an issue.

Check your task manager and see how much memory TERA is actually using. Unless it's a 64 bit executable or it has the LAA flag enabled it shouldn't be able to use more than 2GB. Check to see what you have running in the background, you probably have a lot of unnecessary processes running, and that's eating up all your RAM.

Since this is a prebuilt system, you probably have a lot of bloatware that was preinstalled by the manufacturer, and is sitting in your startup routine, if all those things are running, that would eat up a lot of your RAM. Type MSConfig into your windows search bar, and open it. Go to the startup tab, and check to see what's in there. If you see a lot of unnecessary crap, disable it. The only stuff you really need to have in startup would be antivirus protection, and maybe your audio and video control programs depending on the manufacturer of those devices. Everything else you can disable. After you've done that reboot, you should get a much faster startup time, and you'll be using less RAM in the background.

 

[weker]

6GB should be sufficient for gaming. What CPU and Graphics card do you have? Which games are giving you trouble, and what resolution are you running them at? If you are running into performance issues when gaming it usually means the CPU or graphics card isn't up to snuff. Lack of RAM can cause poor performance, but unless you are running lots of stuff in the background while playing, you shouldn't be running out of RAM with 6GB.

Snip

I am running mostly for TERA, atm I use a GTX 460 and a low end I7, the system monitoring tools that I have running say my RAM goes to like 70-90% in use and it's always high when I have hiccups during gameplay.
I am sure it's an issue with RAM as my friends much much worse tech but the majority have around 8GB RAM so it's the only thing I can really point to being an issue.

Check your task manager and see how much memory TERA is actually using. Unless it's a 64 bit executable or it has the LAA flag enabled it shouldn't be able to use more than 2GB. Check to see what you have running in the background, you probably have a lot of unnecessary processes running, and that's eating up all your RAM.

Since this is a prebuilt system, you probably have a lot of bloatware that was preinstalled by the manufacturer, and is sitting in your startup routine, if all those things are running, that would eat up a lot of your RAM. Type MSConfig into your windows search bar, and open it. Go to the startup tab, and check to see what's in there. If you see a lot of unnecessary crap, disable it. The only stuff you really need to have in startup would be antivirus protection, and maybe your audio and video control programs depending on the manufacturer of those devices. Everything else you can disable. After you've done that reboot, you should get a much faster startup time, and you'll be using less RAM in the background.

I have found something thankfully that was causing my lag issues of TERA, however I would still like to upgrade my RAM as it's one of the only bad things on my computer still.
The actual thing that was holding my comp back was wmpnetwrk which is caused by windows media player and for some reason it soaks up massive amounts of memory.

 

[Supernova1138]

You might want to run a malware scan then. There shouldn't be a process like that eating gigabytes of RAM.

As for upgrading your RAM, it's up to you but you aren't going to see any appreciable boost in performance unless you are doing certain very RAM intensive tasks, like editing HD video, or running multiple Virtual Machines.

If you insist on getting more RAM, go for dual channel sets unless you have an LGA 1366 CPU (Core i7 9xx series then get a triple channel set), that's pairs of memory sticks with same amount of memory, speed, and timings. So the amounts of RAM you should be going for would be 8GB( 2 4 gig sticks or 4 2 gig sticks), 16 GB (4 4GB sticks, or 2 8 GB sticks if you have money to burn and your motherboard actually supports 8GB sticks, or 24GB (4 8GB sticks, and only if your mobo supports that much). Check your computer's documentation for what size of sticks it supports. Almost all modern motherboards do support up to 4GB sticks. Also keep in mind that Windows 7 Home Premium only supports up to 16GB of RAM. If you really want more than that, you have to upgrade to Professional Edition.

 

[alj]

You should be using matched sticks of ram

if you don't a baby panda will die

what i7 are you using ? what ram do you have ?

if you want more ram you would be better with 2 4gb sticks of matched ram (1155) or 4 2gb sticks of matched ram (2011) or 3 2gb sticks of matched ram for 1366/1156