Looking for help upgrading RAM for motherboard

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gamerdude1792

New Member
Hey all, I'm a computer noob. With that being said I do A LOT of rendering in Blender and make CG videos constantly. Right now I have 16GB of DDR4 RAM on an AS-ROCK Z690-C/AC motherboard. I run a 12th Gen i7-12700KF processor with an RTX 3070. I'm looking to see how much RAM I should get (How much is actually overkill) and what's recommended to see a performance boost when working and rendering in Blender and other 3D software. Any help is appreciated. I really have no clue where to start. I'm not informed on these kinds of things.

Thanks in advance!
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
The problem you have is the more ram you have, the more the system will use when doing demanding tasks. So basically what we tell people is check task manager for ram usage when doing the most demanding task you have and see how much ram is being used. If you are above 80 percent then it's time to get more ram.
 
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gamerdude1792

New Member
I'm running at 88% right now with blender open working in a scene and rendering some frames (which is much less than rendering animations by the 1,000's of frames.)
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Then you definitely want either a total of 32 or even maybe 48 or 64. If you add to existing ram just make sure you buy same speed and timing ram or if exact model of ram you currently have is still available then get that.
 
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gamerdude1792

New Member
is it worth upgrading to the highest MHZ I can handle for my motherboard or is that splitting hairs i.e. difference between 3600 and 5000+?
 
C

Couriant

Member
Your board can handle up to 128GB of memory. (4x 32GB). These memory modules have been tested by AS-Rock.

When it comes to tasks like Blender, my preference would be to max out (my wife does big illustrations), but if you don't want to spend that much, then 64GB should be sufficient.

If you change your CPU, you may need to update the BIOS prior to the change. I tried to look at the CPUs you mentioned but there was a few of each. Which specific CPUs were you looking to change to?
 
beers

beers

Moderator
Staff member
I'd pop open task manager and see what your usual utilization is when running your workloads. 16G is pretty small and antiquated for 2024, in my opinion.

Another kit of what you already have would likely be easiest if you're currently in a 2x8G setup.
gamerdude1792 said:
difference between 3600 and 5000+?
Click to expand...
Make sure you stay ddr4, you wouldn't really benefit from 4000+ DDR4 kits. 3600 is usually the sweet spot for price/performance and what the IMCs can achieve.
 
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gamerdude1792

New Member
So I ended up going with Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3200MHZ (2x32) 64 Gigs and so far it's been running so much better! I don't play many video games anymore but I tested it out and noticed one of my games running smoother than ever. Someday I'm going to do more research and build a rendering specific rig for more complex physics simulations with a (future version) of an RTX 4090 and DDR5 maxed out RAM. I do some basic stuff right now but with the new RAM on my current rig I'm hoping to do more physics simulations with water (some of them make my computer groan!). Here's my most recent video . I think this was about 14,000 frames of render. The RAM has definitely helped with video editing as well and having more tabs open in general. Thank you everyone for the help /advice! This video was about 14,000 frames and I know the RAM definitely helped out with the rendering and video editing in the end.
 
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