So my specs are:
CPU: i5 12th Gen
GPU: 3070
RAM: 16GB
I’ve considered a number of options for upgrading, and adding some more RAM seems to be the simplest & cheapest option for the potential improvements; 8GB RAM chips seem to still be reasonably priced, I have 2 free RAM slots, performance would experience an objective increase, and it would perhaps allow me to start effectively using self-hosted AI systems instead of dropping $20/month on Claude. But…is this advisable, and is it really as simple as plugging the extra RAM in? It’s a homebuilt, but it’s been a good few years since I really fiddled around with the internals.
Depends. You didn’t share if it’s DDR4 or DDR5. I believe 11-14th gen supported both, depending on your motherboard, so the cost will vary. DDR4 is still cheaper, so much more worth buying more.
Edit: oh yeah, and you need to buy additional RAM that matches your current speed, otherwise you can degrade performance. Like 3200MHz or 5600MHz, etc.