Should I move up to 128 GB of RAM?

[GrimTim1980]

My desktop died and I built a completely new system. I bought 128 GB of memory however I only installed 64 at the moment. I am wondering if I should put the other 64 GB in or not. I kind of want to do it because I've never maxed out system memory before but at the same time I kind of want the money back if it's not going to make a difference. I will be using Adobe Premiere, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

Here's my system specs;

ASRock Z590 Extreme

i7 111700kf with 360mm AIO liquid cooler

Main drive m.2 SSD 7000mb/s 1TB

Scratch drive just for Adobe m.2 SSD 3600mb/s 1TB

AMD RX 480 8GB

Don't knock my video card as I couldn't afford another one yet but I will get one soon. It's the only part in my system that is not brand new besides the power supply. They even get a video card next week..

I just want to know if I should keep the ram or not.

By the way right now I'm only editing 1080p videos but I may edit 4K or even 6K in the future. My friend has a 6K camera and we are thinking about getting one to match his.

I may try some 3D rendering in the future as well.

[Ann Bens]

Moved to hardware forum

[RjL190365 · Accepted solution]

More RAM does help somewhat, in this case. However, if your future 4k or 6k content is to be in H.264 or HEVC format, then your current setup overall is less than ideal, even with an upgraded GPU, because your CPU does not have integrated Intel graphics (which is required just to enable QuickSync hardware acceleration) at all, while even the most powerful GPU with hardware decoding capability is significantly weaker at this task than integrated Intel UHD Graphics.

So, if any part of your workflow involves either of the above two commonly used codecs, then all decoding falls entirely on your CPU (this means that H.264/HEVC decoding is effectively software only), which will seriously tax that KF CPU with only 8 cores.

[GrimTim1980]

I did read about Quicksync weeks ago, but kind of forgot about it when it came time to order a processor. I originally had a 10th gen processor, thank goodness UPS lost the package and NewEgg didn't have another in stock. I needed 11th gen and above to take advantage of m.2 7000mb/s speed. Then when it came time to order the processor I saw it was like $50 less so I got the KF.

I'll finish paying this stuff off I bought and buy the K processor if you think it makes that much of a difference. You think I should keep the other 64GB memory or ditch it?

I may try that new Intel Arc A770 processor with 16GB.. it has 14% better performance than a 3060.