Nem Jr has a PC for gaming which currently has 6 Gb memory (4+2 ddr3 1600)

I think it’ll run better with more so looking to increase it but should I :

Get a 8gb stick to replace the 2gb one (£30-35 used on eBay)

Get 2×4 gb sticks to replace both the 4 and the 2 (ie a matched pair) – similar prices on eBay

The first option ends up with moar memory but will non matched sticks likely be ok (obv they’re already mismatched in terms of capacity at the mo)?

TIA

I’d get the 2x4gb, perhaps a bit faster than 1600 if the mobo bios can take it.

if in doubt, buy some RGB fans and LED lights, some watercooling and RGB mouse/keyboard/mouse mat…all the colours

Well I suspect Nem Jnr would like the lights 🙂

Crucial suggested 1600 so I’m assuming that’s the limit

The old boys in my place are always bleating about matched pairs, the younger ones say it doesn’t matter any more.

RAM is fairly cheap these days, DDR3 anyway – if it’ll take it, go for a pair of 8s.

That’s outside his budget unless you know a cheap source. Have to say, I’m sceptical about the need for matched pairs.

Have you tried CEX? good returns policy if faulty, generally much cheaper than anywhere else.

You’ll probably get a nominal performance increase with a 2×4 matched pair compared to 1×8 as it’ll operate in dual-channel mode.  But you’re not comparing that, you’re comparing 8GB with 12GB, which I’d hazard is likely to outstrip any performance benefits from dual-channel.

Either way, I’d go with for the 1×8 for simple reason that if you later want to upgrade further you can just buy another 8GB stick.  With 2x4s you’d have to replace both.

Good point.

And thanks for the CEX tip – will give that a go

What’s the rest of the specification of the pc?

If it’s under powered on the CPU or graphics card front, throwing more ram at it might not help much.

It’s nothing amazing but it works ok for most things Nem Jr plays (basically fortnite at the mo) though I note it’s maxed out on memory when running fortnite.

Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
6GB DDR3 Memory
1TB Hard Drive
Zotac GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4Gb

Yeh more RAM will help then.

Another consideration is, if it does max out on RAM, it uses the hard drive as tempoary RAM space, this is probably whats causing the performace bottleneck – a hard drive is obviously much slower memory than RAM to read/write data to.

In this scenario, an SSD drive will be much better, it might be worth chucking one of these in while you are at it, and youse youer 1TB drive for storage.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-green-120gb-2.5-sata-6gbps-solid-state-drive-wds120g1g0a-hd-53l-wd.html

For the sake of £32 it will give the PC a nice boost.

£32 for Nem Jnr isn’t small change 😉

Matched pairs of RAM are preferable, however I’d focus on quantity first.

Also worth bearing in mind, if you are running Mis matched sticks of ram, it will all only run at the speed/specification of the slowest stick.

I buy it from CEX, 8GB sticks are still pretty expensive, you can “match the pair” yourself