Gadgetory

welcome back to harbor unboxed today we're looking into how much ram you need to play the latest and greatest gaming titles with a nice silky smooth frame rates it's about this time each year that I do sit on a memory capacity related quest last year I concluded by saying the following a gigabyte should be the minimum standard while 16 gigabyte is desirable but not needed for general usage and gaming there is no advantage to be had by using 16 gigabyte or more RAM I suspect a year later this still holds true but we have seen a few games recently sneaking past 8 gigabytes of allocated memory so I thought it was probably worth looking into again I have to say though there was one comment I noticed from last year's written article that does sting a bit today that comment being a system memory has hit new lows in 2016 which makes it very accessible even in budget builds well yeah that's no longer the case so I suspect those of you with 8 gigabytes of memory that do feel that they have to upgrade will probably just wait till later next year when pricing comes down hopefully comes down when it comes to games testing the impact of memory or RAM capacity is no easy task and there are many factors at play here before we get into the results I would like to just discuss a few of the challenges faced when doing this kind of testing the first and possibly biggest challenge is picking the right hardware now what kind of graphics card you use can very much influence the amount of memory that you'll need for smooth gameplay likewise the speed of your storage device can also impact the end result for example the GTX 1063 gigabyte will often see higher system memory usage than the 6 gigabyte model as at times you will run out of vram and as a result system memory will be used if you then happen to run out of system memory some game assets are moved to local storage this means something like a hard drive or hopefully an SSD and depending on how fast that device is and how heavily it's hit with data you may on may not see a noticeable dip in framerate so testing with a geforce gtx 980ti on its 11 gigabyte via round buffer along with a super snappy nvme SSD probably isn't the best way to determine how much just in memory your average gamer will require I'd also assume that if you have a $700 US graphics card and potentially a primary storage device of similar value and buying 16 gigabytes or more of system memory or Ram probably isn't really a big issue there are other factors to consider as well for example memory speed can also influence the results I granted even the fastest memory I think's a ddr4 4000 that can't make up for a lack of capacity not entirely but in some instances when working with large volumes of say broken up data it can help to avoid slowdowns as the data is moved in and out of the system memory much quicker the quality settings used in games can also really impact the results if you use a GeForce GTX 1063 gigabyte for example but are happy to turn things down like textures it's a sort of like a medium type quality setting that will reduce how much data is offloaded to the system memory taking all of this into account I've tested a number of different hardware configurations and I'll be showing the impact that all this has on performance however I quickly discovered another issue when trying to show the FPS difference between the various hardware configurations now benchmark passes typically lasts anywhere from say 30 to 60 seconds depending on how the benchmark tests and generally they are based on multiple runs all the benchmarking on harbor and box for example is based on a three run average this means the system does have a chance to cache the pass by keeping just the data we're accessing over and over again in that thirty to sixty second pass and I can store that in high speed and memory so while the results for the very first run might see a shockingly low 0.1% or 1% frame time figure when using a limited amount of system memory this result can be improved dramatically on the second run and then again on the third so displaying a three run average here can be quite misleading the best solution that I came up with to work around this problem was to run each benchmark once then reset the entire system load the game again and then run the next pass the result being that the 30-second pass for each test doesn't have the chance to be cached the benchmark pass is actually 60 seconds in total but I only report the frame rates for the last 30 seconds and this mimics more what you'd see when playing the game for the first say initial 5 to 10 seconds the game can still be loading assets as you play and this can cause frame drops even on computers with sufficient system memory finally benchmarks are cite a good indicator of working at how much memory you'll need to play the latest and greatest titles it's just to monitor memory allocation this probably isn't something that you can really do because if you only have 8 gigabytes you can't monitor if the games going to use more than that because it just gets move to the page file but for me I can install in this case 32 gigabytes of memory and we can see how much of that each of these games will use to see if you do need up to 32 gigabytes it's not a foolproof method but it does give us a pretty good idea of how much system memory a game will require to avoid any slowdowns again the hardware used will impact the amount of system memory used so having said a lot I'm first going to show you memory usage using three different graphics cards and a few popular modern titles all game play tests were conducted on the core i7 87 are ok with 32 gigabytes of ddr4 3000 memory and by using a large memory buffer we can see how much system memory each game and hardware configuration can use when it's not limited by how much system memory you have or not heavily limited and this isn't a completely sanitized test system either there are many applications running in the background such as steam origin you play there's discord Chrome with a few tabs open MSI Afterburner rivatuner and fraps and all these applications are open with the same amount of tabs or whatever open for every single test so as I said this is by no means a completely clean test system running a skeleton crew of applications and processes also please note that the maps used to test each game aren't the same every time we're just testing multiplayer and I did a lot of different map testing and stuff so I'm just grabbing some random footage to show you what I saw for the most part starting with a 64 player battlefield one match using the geforce gtx 1080i at 1440p with the ultra quality preset we see that up to eight point two gigabytes of system memory is being used the system page file grows to 11.6 gigabytes in size and at this resolution and quality settings sees 3.8 gigabytes of vram consumed the 1080 TI though does of course have an 11 gigabyte via ram capacity so this does suggest for perfectly smooth performance in this title gamers will require 16 gigabytes of system memory dropping down to the geforce gtx 1066 gigabyte graphics card under the same test conditions we see that ram usage picked a little higher at 8.5 gigabytes and the system page file grew ever so slightly to 12 gigabytes again we're seeing around 3.6 gigabytes worth of VRAM allocation now if we use a graphics card with a VRAM buffer that's smaller than the amount of memory the game wants to allocate this happens with the geforce gtx 1063 gigabyte we see ram usage hit 10 gigabytes while the page file grows to 12 and a half gigabytes as a result we did occasionally see dips in the framerate that said for the most part the game was still quite smooth and very playable thanks to the fact that we do have a massive 32 gigabytes of system memory installed but whereas you might have gotten away with a gigabytes using a gtx 1080i you most certainly will require 16 gigabytes with the graphics card sporting less than a full gigabyte frame buffer that said the three gigabyte 1060 is really intended for 1080p gameplay but even lowering the resolution at a EP still sees ram usage peak at nine point seven gigabytes even though for the most part the games only allocating around 2.6 gigabytes of VRAM for the rest of the games I'll just quickly summarize what I saw for player unknowns battlegrounds the gtx 1080i saw seven point five gigabytes of system memory used and throughout my testing at 1440 peas in the ultra quality preset the vram peaked at 6.2 gigabytes this meant with the to you by 1060 round allocation did climb to 8.3 gigabytes and the page file also grew a bit to 14 and a half gigabytes but then with the three gigabyte version of the gtx 1060 ram allocation boiled over to 12 gigabytes and reducing the resolution to 1080p didn't help as we still hit 12 gigabytes on the system memory now for the ultimate memory pick Call of Duty World War 2 using the extra quality settings at 1440p we see the gtx 1080i VRAM usage picks at 10.8 gigabytes and that's pretty much maxed out and we saw the RAM allocation hit 10 gigabytes Wow interestingly RAM usage with the gtx 1066 gigabyte was much the same as was the page file size the comparison though unfortunately wasn't made on the same map but I did try multiple maps and I did see similar usage even with a three gigabyte GTX 1060 which was tested on the same map as the GTX 1000 we do see similar system memory usage but frame drops were much more apparent now dropping down at 1080p didn't really seem to help either game is using a three gigabyte 1060 we'll need to lower the quality settings things like texture quality will need to be lowered from the extra that we have it on to something less demanding maybe normal would be more appropriate here moving on we have overwatch and this is a hugely popular and very high quality game even if it's not super higher quality in terms of visuals and textures here we see at 1440p the GTX 1080 I only saw up to 2.4 gigabytes of VRAM usage while the system memory hit just 6.9 gigabytes so 8 gigabytes of RAM will be fine for this hardware configuration in overwatch we do see similar usage patterns with the gtx 1066 gigabyte system memory usage peaked just 7 gigabytes so again 8 gigabytes of ram will work well here for this title that said the 3 gigabyte 1060 you are pretty much right on the edge ram allocation did hit seven and a half gigabytes in my test and we did see much the same at terry p as well finally i monitored system memory usage when playing star wars battlefront 2 and no i didn't get any extra system memory in a loot box using the gtx 1080i at 1440p with the maximum in-game quality settings system memory usage hit 9.2 gigabytes so this is yet another title that will want 16 gigabytes of system memory oddly dropping down to the six gigabyte gtx 1060 reduced memory allocation to a peak of eight and a half gigabytes I did retest this a few times and found the same result each time that said though with the three gigabyte 1060 ram allocation shot up to ten and a half gigabytes so with this graphics card you will certainly want sixteen gigabytes of system memory even at 1080p usage still rows above ten gigabytes okay so we've looked at how much system memory a few of the more popular games released this year are using with three different graphics cards what I want to compare now is the GeForce GTX 1063 gigabyte and six gigabyte graphics cards to see how they compare with four gigabytes eight gigabytes 16 gigabytes and 32 gigabytes of RAM again I'm using a core i7 a 700 K and the memory speed and timings are the same for each capacity the only major difference being that I was forced to test the 4 gigabyte capacity with a single 4 gigabyte stick and this meant using single channel memory I don't have 2 gigabyte ddr4 memory modules and since I already know that 4 gigabyte isn't enough to play these games I didn't really want to waste any money or time trying to acquire a dual channel kit but still be aware that the 4 gigabyte capacity is tested in single channel mode first up we have Assassin's Creed origins and these results were recorded using the very high quality preset at 1080p starting with the geforce gtx 1066 gigabyte we see that the 16 gigabyte and 32 gigabyte memory configurations allow for maximum performance to be extracted in this title interestingly while the same average framerate is achieved with 8 gigabytes we see a noteworthy drop in the frame time performance up to a 10% drop can be seen then unsurprisingly with just 4 gigabytes of system memory the game completely tanks and although the average frame rate looks good the game is now very stuttery as indicated by the 0.1% result similar performance trends are seen in this title with the 3 gigabyte 1060 so I though the impact to the a gigabyte configuration has on performance is less severe I was expecting to farm the opposite anyway we are saying that for maximum performance you will want 16 gigabytes while 8 gigabytes is definitely the bare minimum jumping to 1440p we find the 1066 gear bar is now more limited by its own capabilities than the 8 gigabyte system memory capacity when looking at the 1% lower result that simply just 4 gigabytes around the performance is now disastrous at the high resolution the 3 gigabyte 1060 takes a big hit with 8 gigabytes of RAM and things of course get even worse with just 4 gigabytes next up we have the battle fill 1 results and here I am using the single-player portion of the game as the multiplayer portion can't be benchmarked accurately and is therefore useless for this kind of FPS comparison here the gtx 1066 gigabyte was able to deliver the same performance with 8 gigabytes 16 gigabytes and 32 gigabytes of memory we only see a small decline in performance with 4 gigabytes which is surprising that said though we are only testing at 1080p using the 3 gigabyte 1060 does see a rather major decline in performance with a gigabytes of memory when looking at the frame time results this is of course amplified further with 4 gigabytes though again not as severely as I would have expected increasing the resolution to 1440p and now we see the 4 gigabyte system memory capacity causes all kinds of issues with this 6 gigabyte 1060 stuttering was extremely noticeable the same was found with the 3 gigabyte 1060 and now we're also seeing drop in performance with 8 gigabytes of memory finally I decided to test the ultimate memory pig call of duty World War 2 using the gtx 1066 gigabyte we see that the 16 gigabyte and 32 gigabyte memory capacities allow for maximum performance dropping down to just 8 gigabytes of memory though does hit performance quite hard especially those 0.1% frame time results which an hour 13% lower using just 4 gigabytes was again a complete disaster and the game became completely unplayable the 1063 gigabyte on the other hand just doesn't have enough v around a play Call of Duty World War 2 at turn EP using the extreme quality settings it's not the end of the world and while some will make big deal out of this lowering a few select quality settings will improve things out of sight without taking too much away from the game's visuals anyway I'm not trying to defend at the poor little 3 gigabyte 1060 I'm just noting its a graphics card that comes with compromises in some titles moving to 1440p and now we find an extreme snow where the six gigabyte 1060 really struggles to maintain playable frame rates with just eight gigabytes of system memory upgrading a 16 gigabytes makes a massive difference here while increasing the system capacity further has no impact obviously the three gigabyte 1060 is still a complete write-off with the extra quality settings in play okay well I think that's pretty conclusive I'd say for casual gamers the bare minimum is still 8 gigabytes but there is plenty of evidence to suggest the upgrade to 16 gigabytes will ensure smoother gameplay for serious game is rocking mid-range to high-end hardware we're almost at the point where I'd say 16 gigabytes is the minimal acceptable amount of system memory of course as I alluded to earlier if you've invested over $1000 u.s. in your GPU + SSD combo then chances are spending just shy of $200 to secure a decent 16 gigabyte ddr4 memory kit probably isn't something you're going to think twice about for gtx 1060 or rx 580 owners who've spent around $250 u.s. on their graphics card dumping another $200 on ddr4 memory is something they're probably umming and ahhing about if you're playing games such as battlefield 1 or in particular Call of Duty World War 2 and you care about being competitive then 16 gigabytes really is a must alternatively if you have a relatively high end GPU such as a gtx 1070 or perhaps vega 56 but play older less memory intensive games then 8 gigabytes will no doubt be fine but again for these newer titles you are Deeley want 16 gigabytes I have to say I found it somewhat ironic that for those that bought a three gigabyte 1060 and this I'll admit is a card that I had been recommending to budget shoppers in order to get the most from it in today's games you will actually require 16 gigabytes of system memory so by saving $50 on the GP you actually need to spend $90 us more on system memory so that kind of changes my perspective on things a little bit there I'm probably being a bit unrealistic as GTX 1063 gigabyte owners will probably play at 1080p with lower quality settings and that will likely play a bit nicer with a gigabytes of RAM anyway I've said many words in this video and as a result it's no doubt been very long so apologies for that but I hope it was worth it in a nutshell for today's latest and greatest games four gigabytes is out of the question eight gigabytes is now in my opinion the bare minimum 16 gigabytes is the sweet spot and 32 your bytes is still overkill if you liked this video and I sure hope you did about a week's worth of testing did go into it but if you did like it then please hit the like button and if you want to give me your thoughts then use that rectangular box below or if you're using the new modern youtube click the line that just blends in with pretty much everything else anyway type some words in there and hit enter man there's gonna be so many comments now that just say words or some words anyway if you like what we do here at Harper unboxed and you do want to support us directly they can see that checking out our patreon account the links in the video description Tim's recently revamped it with all new tiers so if you aren't satisfied with just harassing me below in the rectangular box or the line whichever your preference then pays are those three dollars to have a direct link to us on discord and speak your mind whenever you want I'm your host Steve see you next time