How much RAM do you REALLY need...

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I know this really seems like a hard

flex, but honestly, it's been it's what

we've collected over the years, and

we've sold quite a bit of it, but um

anyway, moving on. Today, we know how

terrible the landscape is and the future

outlook is regarding RAM and pricing.

We've seen what the last 3 months has

done in terms of price increase, but

here's the thing. RAM has been cheap for

a long time. And because of how cheap

RAM has been, it has it has twisted our

mindset of what we think we need when it

comes to RAM because 64 gigs was so

cheap for DDR5 for so long that people

have just become accustomed to saying 64

gigs are bust, right? There's so many

conversations that have taken place over

over the last couple years even as DDR5

has become less okay was less expensive.

That that's the thing. And when it's

new, it's expensive and then it matures

and then speeds go up and then quantity

goes up and then price goes down. But

for the longest time, because DDR5 was

actually

fairly cheap given its size and capacity

and speeds that anyone that would build

a system, especially if they had

anything like a 5090 or 4090 or anything

there where they know people are

spending good amounts of money on a

single component are going, why don't

you have 64 gigs? You need 64 gigs to

play games and to have a full-fledged

system these days. 32 gigs is not

enough, right? So, that mentality has

just completely jaded the reality of

what you really need when it comes to

your PC. So, I recently did a video

where I talked about building a DDR4 rig

right now would be the the best and most

cost effective way to enter the PC space

currently. But obviously DDR4 capacities

were on average half of that of DDR5.

So, for instance, DDR4 when it first

launched, you could get 4 gig sticks,

which were kind of rarish, but 8 gig

sticks were like the norm, and most

people would outfit, you know, 16 GB of

RAM in their gaming system. But

remember, we're going back to like 2013,

2014 for that, right? We are 12 years

beyond that now. So, the games have it

it kind of increased on what some of

their demands and such are. And when

DDR5 launched and it was like 16 GB

modules were the norm, that's where

people kind of got this mindset of well

32 gigs is the min because you're going

to run two sticks. Even though DDR5 a

single stick is technically dual

channel. This the standard is you buy a

kit which usually comes with two sticks

in it and 16 gigs being the minimum for

per stick. 32 gigs became the new like

minimum flare if you will for your

system. Well, and then hardcore builders

or diehard enthusiasts were like, "No, I

need 64 gigs or maybe sometimes even

running like 128 gigs by putting four

sticks of 32 gigs in their system."

Right? But then we led into obviously

memory controller instabilities and

stuff where you start to realize like,

well, I've got huge capacity, but I

can't even it has to run at JDX

standards because the system and the CPU

IMC is just incapable of running that

amount of RAM. Things have gotten better

though. It's a lot easier to run that

today. But if you had 128 gigs of RAM in

your system, it is a complete waste of

money. I believe even today running 64

GB is complete overkill. In fact, I

might recommend if you're running four

sticks of anything right now, you might

want to sell two of them cuz you're not

going to lose anything, but you're going

to gain something. And you that what

you're going to gain is some Benjamins.

But I digress. This doesn't even include

non-binary RAM. We're talking 24 gig

sticks. 24 gigs leading to, you know, 48

gig kits leading to 96 gig kits, which

are completely non-standard when it

comes to like the the binary design of

RAM. And not only that, 24 gig sticks of

RAM, even before all of this craziness

started, was a premium. It is it was

twice as much money to buy 24 gig sticks

of RAM than it was to buy 16. But you

weren't getting twice the capacity,

which what you were doing though,

believe it or not, and and I I wanted to

do a video about this a long time ago. I

didn't think it was all that relevant,

but it's I guess it's kind of relevant

today. You are putting actually more

stress on your IMC by running non-binary

RAM than you are running RAM that is

that is binary with, you know, 8 gig, 16

gig, 32 gigs uh sticks in capacity. So,

you would actually have more often than

not, although it's matured, not be able

to run some of the X XMP profiles or the

Expo profiles because of the amount of

stress it would actually put on the IMC.

And there was actually a measurable heat

increase too on the that part of the IIO

die for AMD and you know on Intel's IMC

to be able to run that RAM. So I never

did that deep dive video because that

was when obviously 50 series launched

and then trying to revamp so many SOPs

around here. It's not one I got to, but

it's one I want to get to cuz it's still

going to be relevant. In fact, even if

you shop for RAM today, you'll notice

like a major price difference between

like the same brand and the same like

product. For instance, like this is the

the Trident. Oh gosh, we're going to

have House of Cards falling down right

here. Okay. Anyway, uh it doesn't matter

if it's a Trident Z Neo, right? If

you're having 16 32 gig kit versus a 48

gig kit, even if like the mega transfers

and the timings are the same, you would

notice a major price difference between

the two. And that's because the

manufacturing of non-binary RAM is also

more expensive. So, right off the bat,

just ignore non-binary RAM. Like 24 gigs

uh sticks, don't even consider it,

especially today, cuz there was already

a price premium, and it's even more

premium moving forward. 32 gigs is all

you need. And let's be honest, you don't

even need 6,000 Mega Transfers RAM. It's

a nice to have if you're running a full

like high-end custom gaming rig. you're

running 80 series 90 or 90 tier 80 tier

GPUs or you know I would say 9070 XTs

but they're they're not they're not as

obviously as demanding on the CPU in

terms of frame rate as like an 80 or 90

tier card would be from Nvidia

currently.

[clears throat]

You would be very hardressed to notice a

difference between 6,000 and even like

5600 or even 5200 depending on the

title. Some titles do like they do like

more uh mega transfers, but that's

usually because you're running high

frame rates. I bring this up cuz I

recently saw a post uh and just these

are posts that just make me shake my

head because it means as I hate the term

influencer, but as influencer, I'm not

trying to influence you to buy stuff.

I'm trying to influence your knowledge,

if you will, on stuff. And I' I

[clears throat] saw some someone post a

system like, "Hey, is this a good system

for sale?" It was like a pre-built um

but it was running like 5600 mega

transfers RAM at like I think I want to

say it was like CL36

maybe which obviously is not the fastest

but if you do if you use the RAM

calculator you'll see that the

difference in time in nano seconds is

not like super far apart from say 6000

CL38 which is pretty common 36 obviously

and then 32 and 28 which are

ridiculously expensive these days.

the comments. Oh, I wouldn't even

consider buying a system with RAM that

slow. It's like the level of just

arrogance and the level of

misinformation being thrown out at that

concept of, well, 5200 mega transfers

RAM is so slow, I would never even

consider it. We've tested extensively

mega transfers versus timing versus ju

just the differences on like something

like even a 5090 were in the like max 2%

difference. Guess what that difference

would be on a on a standard graphics

card? Probably zero to be honest. But

it's it's because RAM has been so cheap

for so long and we've kind of gotten

spoiled by that. Um, and and let me let

me redact that a little bit. We're not

spoiled by it. Meaning, you should be

grateful that that was ever the case

because this is this is what they cost

now. It is overpriced today. We know

it's overpriced today. It's just supply

and demand and it's more reasons for us

to all hate AI. But we were spoiled by

an industry that was now is now propping

up an entire other industry. So, it

makes the value of these go up. It's

artificial in more ways than one

obviously, but the value of what the RAM

is today uh is just the price to value

is completely skewed. It's it's not

correct. But because of that and because

you could get 6,000 megat transfers RAM,

6,400 mega transfers RAM and then like

the crazy part is 7,000s and above like

into the 8,000s is uh it was extremely

expensive when it first came out and

even the price on that tanked for a long

time. Let me give you an idea of like

how crazy pricing has gotten right now.

An SI we were talking with recently and

I and I won't name them, but I've been

talking to a lot of the SI to try and

get some ideas of what is it like for

them trying to buy in volume. I guess

for a while there DDR5 like a 6000 CL 32

16 gig stick of RAM was costing $10

wholesale.

Today it's costing $180

wholesale. What is that? a 1,800%

increase or something like that if my

math isn't stupid. That just goes to

show how inexpensive it was to

manufacture and what the markups really

were like. So, you can only imagine how

much money they're making today at those

current prices. Because guess what? The

cost to manufacture it hasn't changed.

It's the same cost it always was. And if

distributors could sell it at $10 a

stick and make money, they're making a

lot of money. Okay, it finally crashed.

They're making a lot of money today.

Oh, this is DDR5 overclocking memory and

this is not overclocking memory. You

know, the non-overclocking is 5600.

>> Oh, I would never consider [laughter]

that.

>> You're so stupid. What kind of stupid

buyer are you, Phil? You're so stupid.

But when it comes about things to

consider, I know Hardware Unbox did an

excellent video comparing a single stick

versus dual stick versus capacities. And

the same effort I'm making today to get

you to understand that if you are in the

market and you do have pockets to afford

right now the crazy costs, don't

overspend by going with like 64 gig

sticks. These are all 32, right? 32 32.

Holy

>> What?

>> I didn't realize what that was. Zoom in

on that. I didn't know we had this. I'm

>> definitely retiring now.

>> [laughter]

>> Anyway, that's we're on a tangent now. I

mean, now people are going to hate us

even more. But yeah, so it's just

because RAM was so cheap, you could buy

a 64 gig set of RAM and and the thing

was back then, and I say back then as in

like 3 months ago, 4 months ago, you

could buy 64 gigs of like 6,000 uh dual

stick, right? So, two 32 gig sticks and

it would have cost you maybe 200 bucks

maybe for the good stuff. Now you're now

you're paying that for DDR4.

But anyway, also one other thing to

consider. I I have seen discussions of

people saying, "Well, then just buy a

single stick and then add more later."

Here's the problem. It is very difficult

to find single sticks of RAM. The reason

for that is for them to run at their

advertised speeds, there is like an ASIC

matching that happens here. There is a

pairing. So, even though these are both

right here 5600

again. So, even though both these sets

right here are 5600 mega transfers CL,

what is the CL on this? it's probably

not going to be that impressive. Uh,

whatever. Let's just say it's CL 38.

Okay? Even though they're the exact same

skew number, if you bought them

independently, let's pretend these are

one stick kits, which is not a kit

anymore at that point, but let's just

say it's one stick each, there's no

guarantees they'll run together in the

same system at those advertised speeds.

The only partial guarantee that you get

because none of the speeds that are

written on the box are ever guaranteed.

it's there's too many other factors at

play specifically with the IMC and the

and the quality of your CPU and the

lottery there. Um they're only

guaranteed with their matched set. So,

same thing if you took two sticks here

and then two sticks here and put them

together and tried to, you know, double

your capacity, you more than likely may

not be able to run them at their

advertised speed. Now things have gotten

better as BIOSes have updated and the Q

QVL lists have improved and the

validation taking place between the

motherboard manufacturers, the CPU

manufacturers and the RAM manufacturers

all kind of coordinating their efforts

to you know come up with these these um

you know IMC firmwares or whatever you

want to call them to make the kits run

have improved. There's no guarantees.

So, I would just be mindful of that that

if you are going to be running a single

stick that you can add another stick of

it later, but there's no guarantees

you'll get the advertised speed. But I

would still rather have a system that's

running JDEX standard of 5200.

Technically, it's 4,800 mega transfers,

but most of them run 52 out of the box

on the motherboards these days. I would

still rather have that than nothing,

right? or that and have twice the

capacity and twice the amount the amount

of bandwidth from for the CPU and the

system to have to the RAM than to not

have two sticks of RAM. I'd rather go

through that. Or if things finally

normalize and things come back down to

reality someday, then you just you go

out buy a a kit of matched RAM and then

you sell the single stick or hang on to

it as a spare troubleshooting RAM,

something like that. But I just wanted

to bring this back to reality that

anyone out there today that is saying

you need more than 32 GB of system RAM

for a gaming machine doesn't matter if

it's DDR4 or DDR5 to be honest. If you

could easily get 16 GB set of DDR5 which

is actually kind of rare because like I

said 16 gigs per stick is kind of like

the standard for DDR5. I do have 8 GB

sticks. I think they're right here

actually. So, I've got several I got

three kits of of 16 gigabytes of DDR5.

Now, there's no heat sinks or anything

on these. This is when DDR5 first came

out and Crucial was sending these out.

In fact, I think these are JDEX. Yeah,

they're they're 4,800 MHz. But, you know

what? Do you know how many people right

now are like, "Can I please buy this

from you, please?" Right? Like, because

it's they understand that something is

better than nothing. But no, ignore and

write anyone off that would say 64 gigs

is needed as just completely ignorant.

They don't they they're just wrong.

That's it. There there's not even a

discussion there. You are wrong. So,

please, for the love of God, if you come

across anyone that's trying to convince

you and you're a new because there are a

lot of people trying to build a system

for the first time today. Uh if you come

across someone telling you you need more

than 32 gigs or your system is slow or

it's terrible or it's it's dumb or

whatever, just ignore those people.

They're ignorant. And to be honest,

they're stupid. And if you're watching

this video right now and you're one of

those people that's ever said that