OFFICE WORK
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB
(2x 4GB) @ 2,400MT/s $44
QIf you’re just keeping it
simple, this is all you need—
8GB of RAM will comfortably
handle light office work, be it
spreadsheets or slideshows,
and is more than capable of
supporting your usual array
of web-browsing activities.
We would be a little wary of
loading up on Chrome tabs,
however, with only eightgigs behind you, but this
should be able to carry you
through everyday tasks.
We contemplated going
for Team’s slightly faster
2,666MT/s model in the
T-Force Vulcan line instead,
but the price difference was
minimal, and for baseline
performance, 2,400MT/s is
more than enough.BASIC WORKSTATION
Team T-Force Vulcan 32GB
(2x 16GB) @ 3,000MT/s $130
QEven with low to mid-level
photo and video-editing
work, 32GB of memory is
the way to go right now. It
won’t necessarily be cheap,
but the affordability of
higher-capacity DDR4 kits
has improved no end over
the past year, perhaps due
to the looming release of
DDR5. This much memorywill run rendering tasks well,
and equip your system for
high-definition videography.
If you’re looking for a fast
system to run tools such as
Photoshop or After Effects,
look no further. 2,400MT/s
will be plenty for Intel
systems; if you’re on an AMD
machine, it may be worth
splashing out for a little more.QTo be honest, there are
no wrong answers here. If
you’re hankering after a PC
for seriously demanding
digital creative work—
whether that’s large-scale
3D modeling or 4K video
editing—the sky’s the limit
when it comes to memory
capacity. We’ve gone for a
mid-range 64GB kit here,
with a real-world latencyof just 10ns, but if you’ve
got the cash to splash,
consider faster or even
larger modules. Corsair’s
Dominator Platinum series
provides some excellent
64GB and 128GB kits, for
example. Make sure your CPU
and motherboard support
quad-channel memory
bandwidth, as is the case with
any four-module RAM kit.WHATE VER PL ATFORM you’re looking to build, memory is
going to be an integral part of it. We’re going to break down the
different potential purposes of new system builds, and assign
the best RAM for the job in each scenario. RAM might have
become cheaper over the last year, but it’s still all too easy to
splurge when you don’t really need to.
Bear in mind that these are only loose recommendations;
follow the specs as a guideline, rather than the manufacturer.
As always, though, we advise you to stick with recognized
brands, such as Corsair, Crucial, G.Skill, and HyperX. If you
can’t find the manufacturer’s name listed anywhere in this
magazine, tread lightly.Best RAM Choices
For Your System
best RAM upgrades
30 MAXIMUMPC SEP 2019 maximumpc.com
HIGH-END WORKSTATION
HyperX Predator 64GB
(4x 16GB) @ 3,000MT/s $395