I currently have 6 gigs Buffalo Firestix 1600 7-7-7-20 2.1v running at 1066 1.64v. Would I see a gaming improvement if I went with 12gig 1600 8-8-8-20?6GB of Ram is plenty for all games I can think of that would usually use 4GB or less of it with close to 2GB idle. I upgraded from 4GB to 8GB Ram and went from 667Mhz to 800Mhz and only difference I saw was when running passmark benchmark utility that showed better performance. As for the games I run, I had no noticeable differences in game. Same load times, fps (mainly governed by the video card anyways) etc. I had about 1 to 2GB idle before with 4GB and now have with 8GB 5 or 6GB idle.

I mainly switched to 800mhz from 667mhz because I expected a greater improvement and wanted to go with the MAX speed supported by my motherboard. Now looking back it was almost money wasted because I didnt have any change in performance.

I suppose I am all set now at least for the next version of Windows when Windows 7 is replaced with a greater memory consuming OS with 8GB 2 x 4GB matched sticks running top speed. Maybe then the difference between 4GB of 667 and 8GB of 800 will make a difference!

If you were going from say 2GB to 4GB, yes you definately would see a difference, as for when I was running 2GB initially with Windows 7 and gaming load times were longer and the system would lag during lots of action. But when I grabbed a 2GB 667 out of a dead computer to match it to 4GB the lag was gone and I now had free memory idle vs starving for memory.

What are you running for a CPU if you think your system is lagging and needs more power?i7 920 and 2xHD5850 There is no discernible improvement when upgrading RAM speeds, especially if accompanied with an increase in latency.
12GB is actually quite unnecessary unless you are looking to run, say, VMWare Workstation with a few simultaneous virtual servers.


I fell in love with the HD 5850 once I took the time to READ some reviews.
What do you mean by "gaming improvement?" Your system should handle 1080p gaming without any issues...I'd have to go out on a limb here and say whatever performance your seeing from games wuth 6G is not gonna be dramatically improved with 12G...

OTHERS may have differing opinions though...