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Memory
Is it worth it to get 16GB of RAM plus 16GB of optane memory if I get an SSD boot drive and a HDD for most of my files?
Is it worth it to get 16GB of RAM plus 16GB of optane memory if I get an SSD boot drive and a HDD for most of my files?
While more RAM will improve system performance to some degree, it is only casually related to your storage devices.
So your decision to get an SSD and HDD is really a separate decision.
The SSD for the Operating System will give you a substantial performance boost over an OS on a spinning hard disk, regardless of the RAM question.
16GB of RAM (of any type) will give you great performance with Windows 10. And great performance with most common programs.
Where more than 16GB will show better performance are with software tasks that need and use lots of RAM. Video editing might be one of those. If you are running a program that you know can benefit from more RAM (a lot more) then you could consider it.
Last edited by TV2; 08 Jul 2020 at 19:58. Reason: Incorrect info
Are you looking at laptops? I'd like to recommend two.
TV2 is right in that 16 is becoming future proof for most uses. You can live with 8 but you feel like you have to watch how many browser windows you have open, how many apps... whereas 16 really eases up on that.
SSD is everything for your main drive.
Or you could go with one of the SSD/Optane all in one models rather than standalone Optane.
Yes good point.
An Optane SSD uses Intel Optane memory chips and is reportedly faster than SSDs with normal memory chips.
It comes at a price though. If it is worth it to get that little performance edge than it may be worth it to you.
But again, what do you need that extra performance to do? Real work or just impressive benchmark scores?
Edit
It looks like there are only M.2 format Optane SSDs right now, and the purpose of the Optane memory is for use as a disk cache.
That is where the better performance comes from.
I should have mentioned that I didn't bother with it on my new system.
I just got a Samsung SSD 970 Pro for my system drive.
16GB of Optane would normally be used as an "accelerator" (fast cache) for an HDD boot drive. I doubt that it's of much use with an SSD.
Using a hybrid HDD (HDD with a built-in SSD cache) for a data drive may be a waste, too.