some people (…) are asking “can you game on DDR3“? The answer is a shocking yes.
“shocking”. Really?
Browsing the internet as a third worlder always give me these eye-rolling moments. Sigh…
RAM Prices Got You Down? Try DDR3. Seriously!
Submitted 2 weeks ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
https://hackaday.com/2026/01/20/ram-prices-got-you-down-try-ddr3-seriously/
Comments
morto@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
tordenflesk@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Everything’s shocking, under-rated and or being blasted these days.
rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
You really slammed em with that one
durindana@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
REJECTED
obinice@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Underrated comment ^
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Checking the year of manufacture of my daily driver laptop… 2018. It’s fine, it works well, does everything I need, just like it did 8 years ago when it was an “average” new laptop.
Oh, it’s also running Linux, I don’t know what would have happened if I left Windows on it - that got dumped in 2018 too.
Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Ddr3 was kind of the point where the technology stopped incrementing with large jumps.
Not saying ddr3 is as good as ddr4 or 5 but I used ddr3 until 2021 with no issue.
THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Same but 2024. I missed all of DDR4. Jumped straight from 3 to 5.
prettybunnys@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I’ve noticed my ram speed much less than the amount of ram for quite some time.
SSDs were game changers.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I went 2 to 4, and honestly my 5800x w 32GB DDR4 @3800 from 2020 is still just fine, hopefully till this shitshow shakes out.
Inkstainthebat@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
Hope I’m not stupid for saying this but I haven’t been able to tell the difference between DDR3 and DDR4
Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Honestly, I don’t feel a difference since switching to ddr4. I just had to for my new motherboard, that’s all.
mohammed_alibi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yep, it works fine for my day to day stuff. And runs many games just fine. I still run my Ivy Bridge Xeon CPU (bought for cheap years ago). Pair a X79 chipset, Xeon with quad channel memory, and say an Arc A770. You can do many modern tasks and games just fine. And for cheap.
PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I’m still using DDR3 as I haven’t upgraded my computer in like 6years. It’s fine. I can play most games at 4k and I’m rocking an Nvidia 4070. I don’t really see any compelling reason to upgrade until GTA6 comes out. (I can play gta5 just fine)
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
The biggest problem with DDR3 is that the last (consumer) boards/CPUs that could use it are really, REALLY old. 5th-gen Intel or AM3 AMD. Which means you’re looking at a full decade old, at the newest. These boards also probably can’t do more than 32GB.
Now, I suppose if you only need 32GB RAM and a CPU that’s pathetic by modern standards, then this is a viable path. But that’s going to be a very small group of people.
humanamerican@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I think this is actually most people. Power users and hardcore gamers are a relatively small portion of the PC market.
dehyzer@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I would be surprised if this is still true, at least for home use. It seems like the non-gamer, non-power user segment of the PC market just switched over to tablets and smartphones instead. PCs and laptops just aren’t really necessary anymore for “normal” people who just want to check their email, watch YouTube, and surf the web.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As someone with a high end PC I can also spend a happy afternoon with my gameboy advance that has less than half a megabyte of RAM, so even in a power user and gamer context the hardware is what you make of it. There’s so much more out there than just the latest and most pathetically optimized titles.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Non-power users would have no operating system, no Windows 11 support and grandma isn’t going to learn Linux
14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
These boards also probably can’t do more than 32GB.
what is the difference between this and having new board, but not being able to afford that 32gb anyway?
tomkatt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For a general use or gaming PC, 32GB is more than enough for the majority of users. It might show its limits with use as a server or dedicated database using complex queries.
Heck, even as servers go, I’ve got an AMD mini-PC running a Ryzen 5700u with 32 GB RAM. It’s running Plex, Jellyfin, AudioBookShelf, Home Assistant, Asset UPnP, and a few other apps, plus has extra VMs and I’m hardly utilizing it. I’m never using more than 8 out of 16 threads, and about half the RAM is still available even under full load scenarios when I’m running updates and using Plex heavily (such as scanning intros, or doing acoustic analysis for Plexamp use).
DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
My daily driver is a PowerEdge T620 with 48 Ivy Bridge cores (2x E5-2969 v2) and 384 GiB of DDR3-1333. It’s a bit of a power hog yes, but it’s still cheaper than upgrading to a more modern system with at least that much DDR4/5, and the only things where performance has been an obstacle has been a few more recent games (most recently Clair Obscur, which was bottlenecked by my GPU with the CPUs at pretty low utilization).
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
This is basically the exact scenario that led me to detail that I was only talking about consumer gear. Server gear is a very different beast, with a variety of tradeoffs that I didn’t want to get into. For instance, I’m assuming you can only use Registered RAM.
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You have a small sever as a daily driver
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
lol my main pc runs on a Xeon from 2011 and 16 GB of DDR3. Now it doesn’t play games newer than 2016 but that’s besides the point as I rarely play anything made past 2011
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Oh so you like good games too?
Haha
CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve been doing active development for high processing stuff (computer vision and AI) on a Xeon 1230v5 (Skylake), 32GB of RAM, and a 1080ti up until a few months ago (before RAM prices skyrocketed). It was perfectly usable.
The only place where it didn’t do well was in compile times and newer AAA games that were CPU bound. But for 99% of games it was fine.
The only time I ran into RAM issues was when I had a lot of browser tabs open and multiple IDEs running. For gaming and any other non-dev task, 32GB is more than plenty.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
The list of vulnerability mitigations for those old CPUs is going to be a mile long. They will probably have their performance cut in half or worse. Even a much newer CPU like Zen 1 takes a big performance hit.
You can disable mitigations, but then a malicious website could potentially steal sensitive information on that computer.
Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There are server chips like the E7-8891 v3 which lived in a weird middle ground of supporting both ddr3 and ddr4. On paper, it’s about on par with a ryzen 5 5500 and they’re about $20 on US eBay. I’ve been toying with the idea of buying an aftermarket/used server board to see if it holds up the way it appears to on paper. $20 for a CPU (could even slot 2), $80 for a board, $40 for 32gb of ddr3 in quad chanel. ~$160 for a set of core components doesn’t seem that bad in modern times.
I think finding a cooler and a case would be the hardest part
b_tr3e@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
These server boards are usually the same as scientific and engineering workstation boars. They’re pretty good if you put the right CPU in. Xeon or i7 4770 and you’ll get a quite useable workstation out of them.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Its been good for my homelab
T156@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Now, I suppose if you only need 32GB RAM and a CPU that’s pathetic by modern standards, then this is a viable path. But that’s going to be a very small group of people.
It’s not that bad. For the most part, it would still be a viable machine these days, though weaker than it used to be. Computers haven’t changed quite as much as they used to, compared to the period leading into the 2010s.
My desktop is still a 4th gen intel. You’re not going to get bleeding-edge performance or efficiency out of it, but it’s hardly a slug. If anything, I’d argue it to more likely be the majority of computers. People don’t upgrade that often, especially if the computer works fine and doesn’t lag horribly.
mctoasterson@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Can confirm, I recently maxed out the RAM on my decade-old rig at 32GB. At least the used DDR3 RAM was cheap. With motherboards that old you are limited to processors like Intel Haswell with 4 cores, pretty anemic by today’s standards.
It works just fine for me running Linux and doing minimal gaming. 90% of my gaming these days is on the SteamDeck anyway.
I thought as I got older I would have more money to buy current gen PC parts and build basically whatever I wanted. Turns out priorities just shifted and things got even more expensive.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Im still on ddr3 and an amd fx. I can play every game except Alan wake 2.
I dont play most aaa slop though.
victorz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There’s a lot of AAA that isn’t slop. That sounds like coping.
Would you be able to run something like Horizon Forbidden West at moderate settings and 60 fps?
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Don’t even know of that game.
I dont really stay up to date on super new games either tbh. I have a huge console collection so a lot of my gaming is spent there as well. Besides, I dont pay more than 20 dollars for games, so I dont buy new ones.
Also, since I refuse to run windows, quite a few scummy game companies are purposely locking out linux users with their trash anti cheat. So I wont play those games and have no want to.
Imaginary_Stand4909@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
There’s a lot of AAA that isn’t slop. That sounds like coping.
Honestly this. I really need people to start defining what they think a AAA game is, because I feel like my definition is different. In my mind, a AAA game is any game made by a large well-known company that either has a series/brandname for itself (i.e. Mario, Resident Evil, CoD) or one that has poured a shit ton of money into it (usually due to employee count). Usually a mainline game, not side or spin-off.
And so going off of that, I truly struggle to think of a AAA game I have played in the last 3 years that could truly be called slop. The only game in that timeline that makes me go “eh”, was FFXV, but I don’t think the game is pure slop, it’s just obviously incomplete without the DLC story. There are people still crying about this game and saying they miss the characters, and it’s more than a decade old now, so I feel it’s hard to call it slop.
Maybe it’s because I mostly enjoy single player games over multi and I play more Japanese than western games, but I don’t know why people buy the latest CoD or Madden and expect it to be significantly different from the last game. Like we know EA does microtransactions, stop buying their fucking games! Why do we expect 95% of SaaS games to be remotely good?
And not that I think indies suck, because I think they’re great too! But people make it sound like every indie game is going to change your life, when there are thousands of indies out there that are just okay. Hell, some big name “indies” aren’t even indies, they’re AA games like CO:E33. And some indies have unfortunately felt lackluster for me, like Cassette Beasts.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Thinking the avg lemmy user plays games that are newer then 2008 is were you fucked up.
People that use this platform basically are glorified luddites when it comes to gaming unless you go to extremely specific gaming areas. Then it’s like 2018 instead of 2008.
burrito@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
You gotta get on Alan Wake 2. I’ve been having a great time playing it. Play the first and Control before you do and you’ll see a lot of tie-ins which is pretty fun. One of the characters looks a lot like Max Payne too.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
You gotta get on Alan Wake 2.
Bit cruel after they just said they can’t run it 😄
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I have played both previous alan wakes and control! Great games. I need to play quantum break next.
moopet@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I thought Control was excellent, but the original Alan Wake was a bad joke.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I play too much path of exile for that to be acceptable sadly
The sheer glut of load zones means even a spinning disk is unacceptable. I literally saved over an hour in time over a weekend back in the day going from ddr3 to 4, and three hours over a weekend going from a spinning disk to a solid state.
And the games only gotten larger in the last few years…
Ddr3 is great! Till you have to deal with a lot of load zones. ):
fyrilsol@kbin.melroy.org 2 weeks ago
I'm fine on DDR4. DDR5 feels to me, something I'll get into in like 5 - 10 years from now. This is from someone who has sat on DDR2 and DDR3 machines for extended periods of time. If they're still doing the job I want them to, no complaints.
termaxima@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
My take : Prices got you down ? Keep the hardware you already have ! No one else can upgrade anyway, games requirements aren’t going up anytime soon.
Obviously that doesn’t cover you if you don’t already have a machine, in which case I would go DDR3.
But for those who do, does anyone upgrade anymore ? I’m on 2019 hardware and everything runs perfectly good. Oftentimes great !
Yeller_king@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I bought a new video card right after Trump won. But yeah now I’m ready to use my current hardware for a good long while.
REDACTED@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
I love how “After Trump won” is a legit basepoint when everything went to shit, even if unrelated (AI was going to happen regardless of politics)
Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Also using 2019 hardware! I dread the day something dies, though. Luckily I upgraded to 32gb of RAM the last time it was super cheap. I’m hoping this machine has another ten years in it.
termaxima@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
It probably depends on what you do, but 16GB is still able to do everything I personally need from my computer. I wish I had more VRAM though, 12GB is getting a little short for some AAA releases (fortunately I rarely play AAA games)
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
100%. I did get a 32gb mini pc this summer. win 11 is not as stable as win 10 on ddr3, mostly sleep/monitor issues. and 780m on ddr5 is about the same for gaming as 1660s on ddr3. Don’t chase gaming frame rates until prices get more reasonable. If you somehow don’t have a PC more recent than ddr3, then it’s not time to get into gaming, but upgrading cpu/gpu and an extra 16gb ram is likely the better value compared to new system.
qyron@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
I’m already considering building a maxed out AMD based machine, with DDR3.
The last machine I had with that technology lasted me 12 years. I can vouch for it.
Know_not_Scotty_does@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I had an 8350 machine with 32gb of ram when if was in season and while it never really left me short of power, the intel 4770k and 4790k were better performers. That may not be the case anymore with stuff being more multi-core optimized but at the time, the intel single core performance was so much better than the 8350s which made a bid difference in gaming.
My old rig was an 8350 overclocked to 4.5 on liquid, crossfired 3gb 7950hd’s, and 32gb of matched corsair dominator ddr3 all in a corsair 230t chassis with the bright orange paint and led fans.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
There’s so many good games made per year now it’s impossible to play them all so buckle up and start playing some older titles. I got into the Witcher 3 6 or 7 years after release and was blown away how I slept on that.
HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I bought an 8G ECC RDIMM DDR4 the other day for 15 bucks cash.
Guy around my age who “bought the wrong kind” for his laptop, and forgot about it until it was too late to return it.
I’m gonna hold onto it a little longer, then see if I can’t make 30 or 40 bucks off it. 🤣
SilentStorms@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I think passing it along for the price you got it at to someone who will be stoked to use it will be more rewarding than making such a small profit
wjrii@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I hadn’t actually looked up any numbers on the RAM shortage. Less than a year ago I got 2 8GB sticks of no-name PC3200 DDR4 for less than $25. I didn’t even really need it for my use-case, but it was so cheap that “why not” felt like a perfectly viable reason to upgrade to 32GB total. Six years ago I got the original two-pack of 8GB sticks for $75. Now that same amount of old-ass DDR4 would be $90-$100. Jeezus. No upgrades for me for a while.
BanMe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I retire PCs at the college I work at. They get stacked in the basement waiting on an inventory/recycling procedure that will never happen because we’re a satellite campus and the basement is the tomb of technology. Went down there the other day to bring a retired PC up to replace a very old lab PC that died. The HD had been removed by a colleague - fine, that’s procedure - and then I realized all the RAM had been stripped out. Dozens and dozens of PCs with nary a stick. “If you’re selling that RAM, I want in on it” I told him. He laughed nervously and said no, but wouldn’t say where it all was.
I am not kidding, I want halfsies…
Balldowern@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
DDr3 works well with Linux (and older Windows OS) for many applications. Just don’t play games, and don’t use AI for a while - you’ll be smooth sailing for a few years before prices fall. Use other devices instead - phones/tablets.
sobchak@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I’ve got a PC with an i7-4770k, 32GB of RAM, and RTX 3090 that plays games just fine (and does runs local LLMs just fine too).
ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Forget the RAM, don’t you get CPU limited?
YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
The question is for companies like Ubisoft and EA which usually design games for what PCs are going to be when a game comes out. And since the games industry was bigger than the movies industry before it collapsed due to Covid, what’s that going to do to the economy?
epicthundercat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But why did my millenial heart immediately think of Dance Dance Revolution???
Marshezezz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I’m about to go dumpster diving for ram or some shit, holy fuck the prices are fucked
anon_8675309@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Found 16GB DDR4 from and old swap the other day. I’m protecting that stuff like it’s an investment now. But seriously, def hanging on to it just in case anything dies.
On the look out for storage deals now. But I’m not hopeful.
Lfrith@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I jumped on some large external HDD deals before storage took a jump. I don’t want to move to subscription cloud services like the billionaires want to happen.
Wish I had gotten a m.2 2230 drive too for my Deck so I missed out on that.
RalfWausE@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I write this post from a Core2Quad machine with 8 GB of DDR2 RAM and a spinning harddisk… and the system feels quiet fast and nimble.
rmuk@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Add a cheap 120GB SSD alongside the HD and it’ll give it whole new lease of life.
RalfWausE@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Nah… i don’t trust SSD’s, had too many dying over the years without any form of warning.
Eh_I@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Did an AI write this?
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Here I was thinking they were recommending a game that ran well with low RAM or something. Like WTF is Dead Dead Redemption 3?
mlg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Alchalide@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Bought my am5 pc late 2023, bought extra storage and a new phone last summer. I don’t need anything right now but I can’t wait for this bubble to pop.
obinice@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
DDR3 isn’t still what everyone’s using anyway?
Huh, I guess it has been a few years since I looked in to RAM…
spookedintownsville@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I never left DDR3. Still never upgraded from an FX-8350.
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
When i looked for ddre mobos they were expensive af. Is it possible to use ddr3 in a ddr4 or 5 mobo? Is there an adapter or something?
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Sure, you can do that. You might as well be gaming on a Steam Deck though, because that’s the level of CPU you’d be limited to.
Which is fine, I’ve got a Legion Go S, it works fine as long as you’re aware of the limitations.
But if I want the AAA big screen shiz, I’m loading up something on my PS5.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I had 96 GB DDR3 for sale and no one even looked at the ad. $20.
absquatulate@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean DDR3 is provably fine. I ran a 16GB DDR3 machine with a goddamn 2500k up until several years ago and pre-2020 games usually ran fine, on playable framerates ( i did have win7, not sure how win10 fares ). Question is: who is this article for? Most tech enhusiasts have probably moved on by now, and even those are a small subset of PC users. “Normies”? Those moved on to phones and tables - it’s why windows has lost 400million machines in 3 years. So who are all these people so left behind that DDR3 is an upgrade but are still currently itching to buy ram? I don’t get it.
flango@lemmy.eco.br 2 weeks ago
My pc uses DDR2 and it runs Linux with no problem. I can even game, just not the new ones
einsteinntuli@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Just dusted off my old desktop and set it up as a server.
Glad I still have it. I might buy more DDR3 if I need it. I’m sorry for those who don’t have a CPU/motherboard already to support it.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“Can’t compete with the global super rich? Lower your standards and be happy!”
Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 2 weeks ago
Just because they’ve trained you to believe you need the latest 2nm chips (which is conveniently their highest margin product) doesn’t mean you really need them.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
So personal computers of year 1999 gave their users that feeling of magic that can still be felt from media of that time, and state-of-the-art chips were being produced in fabs located not only on Taiwan, but USA, Israel, elsewhere.
Personal computers of today don’t give any feeling of magic to most their users, you have to look for it.
Yet considering a standard still above what you realistically need is somehow lowering your standards.
In year 2006 they’d say about computers how many books you can fit into this or that volume of memory, or which calculations you can perform, sometimes, to give you perspective. They don’t do that now, because then you’d be depressed how many resources you are using for something more vulgar than porn.
It’s just sad.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is how existence works, yes. Being happy means adjusting your wants to what you have.
XLE@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
“I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Oh I guess I should be happy that ICE only raided my neighbors and not me.
lobut@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
💩 take
ripcord@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Isn’t this a Genet of Buddhism?
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
yeah, people who live in the US of A should be just happy they are still alive!
zen@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If we were talking about stuff like healthcare, food, housing, electricity, clean water, public transit, or access to information, I’d be on the same page.
But this is a luxury hobby. And with luxury hobbies, there’s usually some flexibility. You don’t need a high-end PC to play games. You can run plenty on a lower-end setup, try different genres, or even step away from PC gaming altogether.
You could have friends over for a tabletop game, go for a run, hit the gym, or try something like rock climbing. There are lots of ways to spend your time without needing top-tier gear