Best upgrade path for gaming PC

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Mad Scientist
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#2283153 25-Jul-2019 06:56

Also is your current team running dual channel? If not then just going dual channel could give up to 30-40 percent boost single handedly.

ShinyChrome

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#2283184 25-Jul-2019 08:36

Batman: Also is your current team running dual channel? If not then just going dual channel could give up to 30-40 percent boost single handedly.

Anything running on the 1150 socket should be dual channel RAM. If you are talking about if he is running dual sticks vs a single stick, the cost by far outweighs any performance gains and your money is better spent eleswhere. And 30-40% boost of what? The only scenario where that would help is if memory bandwidth is saturated, which I would find highly unlikely in a typical gaming use case.

Batman

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#2283302 25-Jul-2019 10:54

ShinyChrome:
Batman: Also is your current team running dual channel? If not then just going dual channel could give up to 30-40 percent boost single handedly.

Anything running on the 1150 socket should be dual channel RAM. If you are talking about if he is running dual sticks vs a single stick, the cost by far outweighs any performance gains and your money is better spent eleswhere. And 30-40% boost of what? The only scenario where that would help is if memory bandwidth is saturated, which I would find highly unlikely in a typical gaming use case.

I watched some youtube videos. All show a 30-40% difference in FPS running last gen test rigs. Can't remember if Intel or Ryzen though, which could be a major factor but pretty sure it was Intel.

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#2283305 25-Jul-2019 10:56

ShinyChrome:
Batman: Also is your current team running dual channel? If not then just going dual channel could give up to 30-40 percent boost single handedly.

Anything running on the 1150 socket should be dual channel RAM

LOL that's... a fatal error in the concept.

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#2283314 25-Jul-2019 11:25

Batman:

I watched some youtube videos. All show a 30-40% difference in FPS running last gen test rigs. Can't remember if Intel or Ryzen though, which could be a major factor but pretty sure it was Intel.

Well shhiiiiiiiiiiiittttteeeeee, I retract all my previous statements.

Here is a comparison from a respected source.

TLDR; single vs dual channel makes no difference in a typical gaming scenario

Batman:
ShinyChrome:

Anything running on the 1150 socket should be dual channel RAM

LOL that's... a fatal error in the concept.

Whoops, you got me there. Error between brain and keyboard. That should read anything running in the 1150 socket (which the i5-4590 CPU fits) should be capable of running RAM in dual channel mode.

Batman

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#2283529 25-Jul-2019 15:21

None of the tests in the source were done to compare gaming FPS.

Jase2985

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#2283665 25-Jul-2019 19:07

Batman: None of the tests in the source were done to compare gaming FPS.

you mean like this one form the link above?

Shogun 2 Benchmark Load Time & FPS

From another site

"Conclusions

Besides that, theoretically, the dual-channel mode doubles the bandwidth between the CPU and the memory, it does not mandatorily result in a perceptible impact on the performance of a specific program. In most of the games we tested, there was not significant performance gain when we enabled the dual-channel mode

In some cases, there was actually a performance drop when the dual-channel mode was enabled. It can be a simple statistic fluctuation (the ideal was to repeat each test dozens of times in each configuration to avoid it, which is not viable) or even a behavior of the CPU memory controller, working more optimally (maybe with smaller latencies) in the single channel mode.

The fact is that, in the configuration we used an in the games we select, there was no advantage in using memories on dual-channel. This means that, in some cases, when an 8 GiB module is less expensive than two 4 GiB ones (for example), you can install only one memory module with no fear of losing performance."

Another site

The tests above show that, for gaming, there isn’t any kind of noticeable difference between running your memory in single and dual channel memory configurations.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that dual channel configurations shouldn’t be considered. There are cases where it will make sense to utilize dual channel configurations

but off topic really

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SpartanVXL

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#2283685 25-Jul-2019 20:20

In practise, yes single channel is sufficient (affects ryzen a bit more). Same thing with the SSD, for majority of cases it doesn’t affect performance, but where it does help is not in average fps but in 1% lows (stutter) where the application loads from disk.

Ideally you want to have a system with as few bottlenecks as possible for what you do on it.

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#2283686 25-Jul-2019 20:24

Absolutly

personally in this situation, i imagine budget will be a factor so try the GFX card and SSD and see how that goes, then if its still not enough or in a year or so when more funds allow grab the CPU/MOBO/RAM upgrade

Batman

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#2283694 25-Jul-2019 21:01

Jase2985:

Batman: None of the tests in the source were done to compare gaming FPS.

you mean like this one form the link above?

Shogun 2 Benchmark Load Time & FPS

From another site

"Conclusions

Besides that, theoretically, the dual-channel mode doubles the bandwidth between the CPU and the memory, it does not mandatorily result in a perceptible impact on the performance of a specific program. In most of the games we tested, there was not significant performance gain when we enabled the dual-channel mode

In some cases, there was actually a performance drop when the dual-channel mode was enabled. It can be a simple statistic fluctuation (the ideal was to repeat each test dozens of times in each configuration to avoid it, which is not viable) or even a behavior of the CPU memory controller, working more optimally (maybe with smaller latencies) in the single channel mode.

The fact is that, in the configuration we used an in the games we select, there was no advantage in using memories on dual-channel. This means that, in some cases, when an 8 GiB module is less expensive than two 4 GiB ones (for example), you can install only one memory module with no fear of losing performance."

Another site

The tests above show that, for gaming, there isn’t any kind of noticeable difference between running your memory in single and dual channel memory configurations.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that dual channel configurations shouldn’t be considered. There are cases where it will make sense to utilize dual channel configurations

but off topic really

i know right, if it's on the internet, it must be true

Batman

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#2283696 25-Jul-2019 21:09

i really don't know what games those jokers were playing

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#2283704 25-Jul-2019 21:38

this guy also read the articles you all have read religiously, but decided that he'd do his own experiment

he also found that some people have no idea what they're doing, putting RAMs in random slots and have no idea what requirements for dual channel are.

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#2283744 25-Jul-2019 21:39

anyway, what do i know. just talking a load of rubbish. i'll go back to gaming on my dual channel last gen rig ....

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#2284017 26-Jul-2019 10:47

Batman:

i know right, if it's on the internet, it must be true

Ahhh, the old "Fake News" argument. Except YouTube, we can trust everyone on there, right?

Batman:

this guy also read the articles you all have read religiously, but decided that he'd do his own experiment

he also found that some people have no idea what they're doing, putting RAMs in random slots and have no idea what requirements for dual channel are.

Well the first video is literally someone playing a game, hardly a conclusive test.

The second guy, much more interesting and thanks for posting him. I hadn't seen him before and he presents a well-reasoned and comprehensive argument backed by testing. It clearly shows the game has moved on since the testing I posted and modern games are quite capable of straining memory bandwidth in the right conditions.

While I don't dispute his results, I will dispute your conclusion based on it. What I conclude from this is that once all other bottle-necks are removed, single channel RAM becomes a bottle neck, in his words, "intensive games". He also states that it is not the same with every game as well. Thus not exactly a "30/40% performance boost", implied across the board for OP. And unless you installed it incorrectly anyway (Rut-roah The Verge) or are deciding between purchasing for 1 * xgb vs 2 * x/2gb, solve for x, my original point that the cost outweighs the benefits stands.

But the reality is that this is so far removed from OP's neighbor's kid's system (what a mouthful), that it's hardly relevant and ultimately a pointless argument.

Sorry OP, my bad for getting off-topic. As some amends, here is a list of graphics cards worth looking at the lower-to-mid end of the market and from this review of the GTX 1660, you can see the differences in FPS between the GTX 1660, RX570/80. And this 5700XT review to compare against RTX 2060/70 Super if your budget runs a bit higher.

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#2284176 26-Jul-2019 12:47

Mouthful indeed haha

Constructive debate guys, lots of interesting info unearthed thanks for everybody's input. The dual channel topic is interesting and I tend to agree with the reasoning that it may be an issue but only after higher priority bottlenecks have been removed.

Going with the 1060 for now, I will post before's and after's if it all goes ahead.

cheers.

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