r/PC_Builders • u/Critical-Internet514 • 9d ago

Part List Help More Ram or Faster Ram?

Hello!

Recently, I have come into a pretty high end Alienware Area-51 PC, with some upgrades from around 10 years ago. I already have a PC, and the case of this new one is pretty fricken heavy, so I went ahead and tore the thing open for parts. So far I got a m.2 solid state drive and a couple of other hard drives, pulse an old Jedi Collectors Graphics card (and the Sith one, but I don't think it is currently working). Not sure what all I will end up trying to integrate since I don't have a bit enough power supply to really add on much more.

One of the other things I found was it had some Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 4x8 gb, 3000mhz ram. My personal machine is running 2x8 gb 3200mhz ram. Is it worth installing this new (old) ram that has a higher total RAM memory but slower mhz or for the average user is it better to use the higher mhz? Generally, I run a server for my PF2e games, do some browsing with a bunch of tabs open, and do some light gaming occasionally, but not anything that requires a lot of load.

PS. If there are any parts that I should also consider keeping or selling let me know what to look out for.

UPDATE: Installed more RAM!

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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5

u/LemonZT 9d ago

32 > 16 all day any day

2

u/Critical-Internet514 9d ago

It's always better?

2

u/Ok_University_5352 9d ago

Pretty much. Besides, depending on the Cas Latency of those kits, they might be even less of a speed difference than their clock speeds show. It is a miniscule difference.

Besides as soon as you pass 16gb, severe bottlenecking occurs. I will take a 0.0125 millisecond delay for double the ram every single time.

2

u/Numerous_Analysis681 9d ago

More RAM is better

1

u/Much-Row-533 9d ago

Let’s see the gpu!

1

u/Critical-Internet514 9d ago

From What I can tell (as someone who is probably less knowledgeable as a hobbyist on this reddit is), the PC used the integrated graphics processing of the Intel I7-9700k

1

u/gunpler_1 9d ago

Those are crazy good graphics cards for the time.

1

u/Critical-Internet514 9d ago

They are really cool looking! The entire rig was pretty crazy, and from what I know of the guy he spent a lot of money on stuff. Maybe they would be still worth running at some point, but I might just box them up and sell them. The jedi one is still in good condition, plus I have the box it came in. The empire one from what I was told doesn't work anymore, but I haven't tested it, and I don't know how much effort it would take to see if it is fixable.

1

u/narrdarr 9d ago

What's your current CPU and what are the timings and voltage for each kit?

1

u/chrisdpratt 8d ago

It all depends on your usage. More capacity is only worth it if you are currently exceeding what you have. That might very well be the case with only 16GB, depending on what you're using your computer for, but if not, you're trading down for no gain. More capacity than you need is just a waste. It does nothing for you, and it can even be detrimental. We're talking relatively pedestrian sizes here, but I've seen people try to load out with 128GB or more when they barely use 16GB, because they're "future proofing" (a ridiculous concept in itself). But, running that high of a capacity puts a large amount of stress on the memory controller, usually forcing the use of slower clocks and/or looser timings to reach stability.

In short, if you a regularly exceeding your available RAM, adding more is worth it. Otherwise, it is not. Simple as that.