To get 128GB of RAM or not to get 128GB of RAM. That is the question. Hmmm... ('_' )?

The Squirrel Mafia · 07-09-2020, 08:31 AM - **5 Likes**

Thanks everyone! After reading all the comments here, I figured that if I was able to get by with 32GB (8GBx4) of DDR3 1866 on my old AMD FX-8350 build, then 64GB of DDR4 3200 will be more than enough for a very long while. I got 2 kits of the G.SKILL Aegis 32GB RAM. It was about $250 cheaper than getting 128GB of RAM & I ended up getting some other PC stuff too. I think I'll be covered for a long while.

**ehrwien** · 07-15-2020, 07:23 AM

Good choice imo. I have a 3600 as well, on a B450 board, equipped with 2x16 GB of 3000 CL 15 Crucial Ballistix RAM, which I am running at 3600 MT/s CL 16. Even though CL 14 and other sharper timings would have been possible with it, I rather let the timings be a little less tight and save on voltage and the resulting heat. More than 3600 MT/s could have been possible, but only when OCing the IF as well (otherwise the RAM and IF would not run at the same frequency, which results in a massive hit in performance), which is not a given with every CPU.

You'll have to change some settings in the BIOS, either by activating XMP (or rather the AMD equivalent) or by setting the frequency, timings and voltage yourself (there are good guides out there how you can achieve optimal settings, but the specific RAM you use will have a huge influence on the possible results; that's why I bought mine, it was known to be good for OCing), otherwise it'll run at the default (I think 2400 MT/s?) frequency. Even just getting it to the advertised numbers from there will give some great improvements for everything that profits from faster RAM. If you can get it even higher, the added benefit will become smaller the higher you push it, so somewhere there'll be a point where you have to invest more time and voltage than what can be justified by the gains, but up to a certain point it makes sense to at least think about it (for me that point was reached at very stable 3600 MT/s and CL 16).

**ThorSanchez** · 07-16-2020, 04:42 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by The Squirrel Mafia

Thanks everyone! After reading all the comments here, I figured that if I was able to get by with 32GB (8GBx4) of DDR3 1866 on my old AMD FX-8350 build, then 64GB of DDR4 3200 will be more than enough for a very long while. I got 2 kits of the G.SKILL Aegis 32GB RAM. It was about $250 cheaper than getting 128GB of RAM & I ended up getting some other PC stuff too. I think I'll be covered for a long while.

I think that will be way more than enough. When building my machine in January I thought 64 or 128G was my target, then after doing research and testing out my old system's utilization I decided on 32G of the fastest memory the motherboard could handle (like yours, G.Skill). I monitored memory usage for a while after building the computer, and I don't think I've ever approached 32G.

**jbinpg** · 07-16-2020, 10:49 AM

It all depends on your program usage. If you are into deep sky astro using something like PixInsight to crunch the data then get all the RAM you can afford.

The Squirrel Mafia · 07-21-2020, 08:13 AM - **1 Like**

My new PC is up & running. These are the components that I ended up getting.

I can run very large AutoCAD files, batch hundreds of RAW files in RawTherapee (spits out RAW files as jpegs in about +-4 seconds each compared to about +-10 seconds each with AMD FX-8350), listen to music, browse the Interwebs, have multiple PDFs open, run several Excel sheets, play some old-skool game on RetroArch, & do a bunch of other things all at the same time without this thing breaking a sweat. Mind you that I'm running a "mid-range" Ryzen 5 3600 CPU. I look forward to see what AMD does with the 4th generation Ryzen. I think the upcoming 4th gen CPUs will be compatible with the AMD B550 chipset motherboards. As for now, it's a massive upgrade over my old AMD FX-8350 setup.

The only thing it can't do is run the XMP profiles for the RAM. I guess it's too much RAM for it (2 kits of 2x16GB = 64GB total). The system locks up at startup if I try to enable it in the BIOS. I'm running the latest F2 version. The RAM is not on the motherboard's QVL list, which I already knew. The motherboard is listed on the RAM's QVL list. Funny. Maybe a future BIOS update will let me run the XMP, but as for now, the RAM works perfectly fine without the XMP at 2133. I'm not overclocking the CPU either, but I did leave it on AUTO in the BIOS. Another thing that I eventually figured out was how to turn off the insanely bright at night light on the SD card reader when the PC was shut down. Turned out that I had to enable the ErP setting in the BIOS. Now I can sleep again. Hahaha!

**Serkevan** · 07-21-2020, 08:22 AM

When I eventually decide to settle down and build a desktop (those two things go hand in hand

, a gaming laptop every 5 years is plenty for now) I'm probably gonna go for AMD just to get all that Ryzen goodness.

Congrats on the rig!

**ehrwien** · 07-21-2020, 08:41 AM

Originally posted by The Squirrel Mafia

The only thing it can't do is run the XMP profiles for the RAM. I guess it's too much RAM for it (2 kits of 2x16GB = 64GB total). The system locks up at startup if I try to enable it in the BIOS.

Not unexpected and not uncommon, even if the RAM had been on the QVL. XMP is an Intel thing in the first place, so from what I hear that alone makes it finicky on AMD systems. Running it with all 4 slots loaded doesn't make it easier. The thing to do is to not use XMP, but to manually choose higher frequency, timings and voltages. There are great guides out there to help you with that, there are even pieces of software you can plug in what RAM you have and it will tell you how far you should be able to push it.

Originally posted by The Squirrel Mafia

I'm not overclocking the CPU either

With modern CPUs that's mostly wasted energy anyway. You have your "stock" speed and the integrated turbo range. It will depend on your cooling solution (stock cooler?) how high this will get your core frequencies and for how long. Then there's Precision Boost and Precision Boost Overdrive, which you could just tick on in the BIOS, but from what I heard that does not yield that much performance, especially wrt the energy input... I do run my 3600 on stock settings as well and I'm happy with that. Apart from... well, the overclocked RAM, which is in a way also overclocking the CPU, because the RAM controller sits inside the CPU. With Intel you're essentially already voiding your warranty when enabling XMP, even on K-processors (the unlocked ones meant to be oc'd) and Z-boards.

The Squirrel Mafia · 07-21-2020, 09:00 AM

Originally posted by Serkevan

When I eventually decide to settle down and build a desktop (those two things go hand in hand

, a gaming laptop every 5 years is plenty for now) I'm probably gonna go for AMD just to get all that Ryzen goodness.

Congrats on the rig!

Intel CPUs still have a slight lead on single thread performance, but these new Ryzen chips offer so much bang for the buck & still have very decent single thread performance. This "basic" Ryzen 5 3600 is quite amazing to me & it technically only uses 65 watts. Much less than the 125 watts with the FX-8350.

I can still eventually replace the CPU with a higher end model. The one CPU that I would really like to eventually get is the Ryzen 9 PRO 3900, but AMD doesn't sell it to regular consumers. Maybe I'll eventually find a used one on eBay. It only uses 65 watts & can crunch a serious amount of numbers.

Originally posted by ehrwien

Not unexpected and not uncommon, even if the RAM had been on the QVL. XMP is an Intel thing in the first place, so from what I hear that alone makes it finicky on AMD systems. Running it with all 4 slots loaded doesn't make it easier. The thing to do is to not use XMP, but to manually choose higher frequency, timings and voltages. There are great guides out there to help you with that, there are even pieces of software you can plug in what RAM you have and it will tell you how far you should be able to push it.

With modern CPUs that's mostly wasted energy anyway. You have your "stock" speed and the integrated turbo range. It will depend on your cooling solution (stock cooler?) how high this will get your core frequencies and for how long. Then there's Precision Boost and Precision Boost Overdrive, which you could just tick on in the BIOS, but from what I heard that does not yield that much performance, especially wrt the energy input... I do run my 3600 on stock settings as well and I'm happy with that. Apart from... well, the overclocked RAM, which is in a way also overclocking the CPU, because the RAM controller sits inside the CPU. With Intel you're essentially already voiding your warranty when enabling XMP, even on K-processors (the unlocked ones meant to be oc'd) and Z-boards.

Good to know about the RAM. It works perfectly fine as it is & it's not like I need to overclock it either. I figured if the BIOS could handle XMP Auto, then I'd leave it, but since it can't, I'm fine with that. The RAM works great as it is.

Yes. I'm running the stock cooler 'cause I didn't plan on overclocking the CPU at all. I would get a much better fan like a Noctua or something like that & add more fans to the case if I ever ended up getting a Ryzen 9 PRO 3900, 9 3950X, 9 3900X, or 9 3900XT processor in the long run.

07-21-2020, 08:13 AM - 1 Like	#35
The Squirrel Mafia Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 3,054 Original Poster	My new PC is up & running. These are the components that I ended up getting. Corsair Carbide Series 100R Mid-Tower Case Gigabyte B550 AORUS PRO AC Gigabyte Radeon RX 580 GAMING 8G AMD Ryzen 5 3600 G.SKILL Aegis DDR4 Sabrent 512GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Sabrent 7 Slot USB 2.0 Internal Memory Card Reader Vantech 3.5" to 5.25" REVOLUTION X't II / 80 PLUS Gold Certified PSU I can run very large AutoCAD files, batch hundreds of RAW files in RawTherapee (spits out RAW files as jpegs in about +-4 seconds each compared to about +-10 seconds each with AMD FX-8350), listen to music, browse the Interwebs, have multiple PDFs open, run several Excel sheets, play some old-skool game on RetroArch, & do a bunch of other things all at the same time without this thing breaking a sweat. Mind you that I'm running a "mid-range" Ryzen 5 3600 CPU. I look forward to see what AMD does with the 4th generation Ryzen. I think the upcoming 4th gen CPUs will be compatible with the AMD B550 chipset motherboards. As for now, it's a massive upgrade over my old AMD FX-8350 setup. The only thing it can't do is run the XMP profiles for the RAM. I guess it's too much RAM for it (2 kits of 2x16GB = 64GB total). The system locks up at startup if I try to enable it in the BIOS. I'm running the latest F2 version. The RAM is not on the motherboard's QVL list, which I already knew. The motherboard is listed on the RAM's QVL list. Funny. Maybe a future BIOS update will let me run the XMP, but as for now, the RAM works perfectly fine without the XMP at 2133. I'm not overclocking the CPU either, but I did leave it on AUTO in the BIOS. Another thing that I eventually figured out was how to turn off the insanely bright at night light on the SD card reader when the PC was shut down. Turned out that I had to enable the ErP setting in the BIOS. Now I can sleep again. Hahaha!

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07-09-2020, 08:31 AM - 5 Likes	#31
The Squirrel Mafia Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 3,054 Original Poster	Thanks everyone! After reading all the comments here, I figured that if I was able to get by with 32GB (8GBx4) of DDR3 1866 on my old AMD FX-8350 build, then 64GB of DDR4 3200 will be more than enough for a very long while. I got 2 kits of the G.SKILL Aegis 32GB RAM. It was about $250 cheaper than getting 128GB of RAM & I ended up getting some other PC stuff too. I think I'll be covered for a long while.

07-15-2020, 07:23 AM	#32
ehrwien Site Supporter Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 2,782	Good choice imo. I have a 3600 as well, on a B450 board, equipped with 2x16 GB of 3000 CL 15 Crucial Ballistix RAM, which I am running at 3600 MT/s CL 16. Even though CL 14 and other sharper timings would have been possible with it, I rather let the timings be a little less tight and save on voltage and the resulting heat. More than 3600 MT/s could have been possible, but only when OCing the IF as well (otherwise the RAM and IF would not run at the same frequency, which results in a massive hit in performance), which is not a given with every CPU. You'll have to change some settings in the BIOS, either by activating XMP (or rather the AMD equivalent) or by setting the frequency, timings and voltage yourself (there are good guides out there how you can achieve optimal settings, but the specific RAM you use will have a huge influence on the possible results; that's why I bought mine, it was known to be good for OCing), otherwise it'll run at the default (I think 2400 MT/s?) frequency. Even just getting it to the advertised numbers from there will give some great improvements for everything that profits from faster RAM. If you can get it even higher, the added benefit will become smaller the higher you push it, so somewhere there'll be a point where you have to invest more time and voltage than what can be justified by the gains, but up to a certain point it makes sense to at least think about it (for me that point was reached at very stable 3600 MT/s and CL 16).

07-16-2020, 04:42 AM - 1 Like	#33
ThorSanchez Site Supporter Join Date: Dec 2012 Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 2,806	Originally posted by The Squirrel Mafia Thanks everyone! After reading all the comments here, I figured that if I was able to get by with 32GB (8GBx4) of DDR3 1866 on my old AMD FX-8350 build, then 64GB of DDR4 3200 will be more than enough for a very long while. I got 2 kits of the G.SKILL Aegis 32GB RAM. It was about $250 cheaper than getting 128GB of RAM & I ended up getting some other PC stuff too. I think I'll be covered for a long while. I think that will be way more than enough. When building my machine in January I thought 64 or 128G was my target, then after doing research and testing out my old system's utilization I decided on 32G of the fastest memory the motherboard could handle (like yours, G.Skill). I monitored memory usage for a while after building the computer, and I don't think I've ever approached 32G.

07-16-2020, 10:49 AM	#34
jbinpg Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Prince George, BC Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 3,546	It all depends on your program usage. If you are into deep sky astro using something like PixInsight to crunch the data then get all the RAM you can afford.

07-21-2020, 08:22 AM	#36
Serkevan Site Supporter Join Date: May 2019 Photos: Albums Posts: 5,976	When I eventually decide to settle down and build a desktop (those two things go hand in hand , a gaming laptop every 5 years is plenty for now) I'm probably gonna go for AMD just to get all that Ryzen goodness. Congrats on the rig!

07-21-2020, 08:41 AM	#37
ehrwien Site Supporter Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 2,782	Originally posted by The Squirrel Mafia The only thing it can't do is run the XMP profiles for the RAM. I guess it's too much RAM for it (2 kits of 2x16GB = 64GB total). The system locks up at startup if I try to enable it in the BIOS. Not unexpected and not uncommon, even if the RAM had been on the QVL. XMP is an Intel thing in the first place, so from what I hear that alone makes it finicky on AMD systems. Running it with all 4 slots loaded doesn't make it easier. The thing to do is to not use XMP, but to manually choose higher frequency, timings and voltages. There are great guides out there to help you with that, there are even pieces of software you can plug in what RAM you have and it will tell you how far you should be able to push it. Originally posted by The Squirrel Mafia I'm not overclocking the CPU either With modern CPUs that's mostly wasted energy anyway. You have your "stock" speed and the integrated turbo range. It will depend on your cooling solution (stock cooler?) how high this will get your core frequencies and for how long. Then there's Precision Boost and Precision Boost Overdrive, which you could just tick on in the BIOS, but from what I heard that does not yield that much performance, especially wrt the energy input... I do run my 3600 on stock settings as well and I'm happy with that. Apart from... well, the overclocked RAM, which is in a way also overclocking the CPU, because the RAM controller sits inside the CPU. With Intel you're essentially already voiding your warranty when enabling XMP, even on K-processors (the unlocked ones meant to be oc'd) and Z-boards.

07-21-2020, 09:00 AM	#38
The Squirrel Mafia Pentaxian Join Date: Jan 2015 Posts: 3,054 Original Poster	Originally posted by Serkevan When I eventually decide to settle down and build a desktop (those two things go hand in hand , a gaming laptop every 5 years is plenty for now) I'm probably gonna go for AMD just to get all that Ryzen goodness. Congrats on the rig! Intel CPUs still have a slight lead on single thread performance, but these new Ryzen chips offer so much bang for the buck & still have very decent single thread performance. This "basic" Ryzen 5 3600 is quite amazing to me & it technically only uses 65 watts. Much less than the 125 watts with the FX-8350. I can still eventually replace the CPU with a higher end model. The one CPU that I would really like to eventually get is the Ryzen 9 PRO 3900, but AMD doesn't sell it to regular consumers. Maybe I'll eventually find a used one on eBay. It only uses 65 watts & can crunch a serious amount of numbers. Originally posted by ehrwien Not unexpected and not uncommon, even if the RAM had been on the QVL. XMP is an Intel thing in the first place, so from what I hear that alone makes it finicky on AMD systems. Running it with all 4 slots loaded doesn't make it easier. The thing to do is to not use XMP, but to manually choose higher frequency, timings and voltages. There are great guides out there to help you with that, there are even pieces of software you can plug in what RAM you have and it will tell you how far you should be able to push it. With modern CPUs that's mostly wasted energy anyway. You have your "stock" speed and the integrated turbo range. It will depend on your cooling solution (stock cooler?) how high this will get your core frequencies and for how long. Then there's Precision Boost and Precision Boost Overdrive, which you could just tick on in the BIOS, but from what I heard that does not yield that much performance, especially wrt the energy input... I do run my 3600 on stock settings as well and I'm happy with that. Apart from... well, the overclocked RAM, which is in a way also overclocking the CPU, because the RAM controller sits inside the CPU. With Intel you're essentially already voiding your warranty when enabling XMP, even on K-processors (the unlocked ones meant to be oc'd) and Z-boards. Good to know about the RAM. It works perfectly fine as it is & it's not like I need to overclock it either. I figured if the BIOS could handle XMP Auto, then I'd leave it, but since it can't, I'm fine with that. The RAM works great as it is. Yes. I'm running the stock cooler 'cause I didn't plan on overclocking the CPU at all. I would get a much better fan like a Noctua or something like that & add more fans to the case if I ever ended up getting a Ryzen 9 PRO 3900, 9 3950X, 9 3900X, or 9 3900XT processor in the long run.