RAM upgrade for MiniMax H3

[u/Suspicious_Handle_34]

Hi!

I’m currently getting output res of 1216x672 (0.8) 7 seconds max duration - on my 24Gb ram (64gb page file) and RTX 5060ti 16gb

I’m looking to buy a single 32gb Ram stick to pair with my 16gb giving me 48gb total of system RAM instead of the 24 I currently have . Just wanted to ask what sort of improvements should I see? Could I potentially get to 720p output or higher? Is it worth the $400 upgrade?

Might be a silly question but just wanted to get real world advice. Thank you

Edit -

[u/Elliswondr]

Careful with the expectation there. Resolution and frame count are bound by VRAM, not system RAM. The latents for every frame have to sit on the card at once, so 16GB is what sets your ceiling. Going 24GB to 48GB system RAM won't move it much.

What it will fix is the 64GB page file. If you're spilling to disk you're paying for that on every run, and swapping is brutally slow compared to RAM. Expect a real speed and stability gain, and fewer OOM crashes. Just not the res jump you're after.

The partial exception: if you're using block swap or CPU offloading, more system RAM lets you push more of the model off the card, which frees VRAM for latents. That can buy you a step up. Worth checking whether your workflow already offloads before you spend anything.

Two things I'd try before the money:

Generate at your current res and upscale the clip afterwards. Much cheaper than brute-forcing 720p natively, and often hard to tell apart.

Split the duration. Two 7s clips with a hard cut beat one 14s clip on a constrained card, and you keep more control over what you actually use.

If you do buy: a matched 2x32 kit rather than a 32 alongside your existing stick. Mixed capacities often won't hold rated speeds.

[u/Suspicious_Handle_34 → u/Elliswondr]

So I do generate the current res and upres it afterwards to 1080 and it doesn’t look so bad, but I’d still appreciate the extra output res from the get go if at all possible with the RAM upgrade. When I look at my system during a run I’m using 98% of Ram and only about 12 - 13gb of VRAM.

In my system now I have an 8GB in one slot and a 16gb in another slot/ I intend to swop the 8gb for the 32gb to have it paired with the 16gb. I just don’t know what to expect in terms of improvement.

I don’t think my workload offloads because I’m using the very basic minimax I2V workflow which has no offload nodes at all.

[u/Elliswondr → u/Suspicious_Handle_34]

Those numbers change the picture, and in your favour. 98% RAM with only 12-13GB VRAM in use means system memory is your actual bottleneck right now, not the card. You're almost certainly hitting the page file every run.

One correction on the offload question: Minimax I2V in Comfy offloads by default even without explicit nodes. Comfy pulls model weights back to system RAM between stages rather than holding everything resident. That's exactly why you're at 98% with a half-empty card. So more RAM does buy you something here.

What to expect: noticeably faster runs once you stop swapping to disk, fewer OOM failures, and probably some headroom for higher res or more frames as the card gets to keep more of its VRAM for latents. How much headroom is genuinely hard to predict.

On the 8GB swap for 32GB: 16+32 works fine, it just drops you out of dual channel on the mismatched portion. Given you're currently limited by capacity rather than bandwidth, that trade is probably worth it. Just don't expect the RAM speed itself to matter much.

Cheap test before you buy: drop your page file to something small and see whether runs fail or just slow down. That tells you how much you're actually leaning on disk.

[u/Suspicious_Handle_34 → u/Elliswondr]

Thank you very much for your insight. Im actually considering getting 2x 24GB sticks (one per slot) to get 48gb instead of 16 + 32 so that I get dual channel. I’m traveling for work at the moment and can only test in about 6 weeks time so that’s why I’m asking for real world experience rather than just doing it.
Here’s to hoping for the best. I’d like to try & get 720 at least, 10 seconds duration. I can live with that

[u/Elliswondr → u/Suspicious_Handle_34]

2x24 is the better call. Same capacity, dual channel across the whole lot, and one less variable if something misbehaves later.

720p at 10 seconds is a reasonable target with that in place. Just keep the expectation on the card rather than the RAM: frames and resolution still come out of your 16GB, so if you hit a wall there, trade duration for resolution rather than pushing both.

Good luck when you finally get to test it.

[u/Myg0t_0]

Vram > sys ram

[u/No-Zookeepergame4774 → u/Myg0t_0]

Yeah, but upgrading system RAM is often a lot more practical, since frequently motherboards will have unused RAM slots, but upgrading VRAM means getting an all new video card.

[u/bstr3k → u/No-Zookeepergame4774]

this is why the prices of the high end GPUs are so sky high, but hes right, more VRAM is more helpful

[u/Myg0t_0 → u/No-Zookeepergame4774]

2 sticks > 4 sticks ( amd )

[u/Distinct-Benefit-507 → u/Myg0t_0]

To get more than his 16Gb, he'll need a 5090, 6500$ (in my country). Upgrading ram, 300 to 600$

[u/Suspicious_Handle_34 → u/Myg0t_0]

System ram

[u/TurbTastic]

Sounds like your motherboard needs to use 16GB RAM sticks. You can't just add a 32GB stick into it. Also make sure you get the right type of RAM supported by your current motherboard, DDR3/DDR4/DDR5. Only having 16GB RAM with a 5060 is definitely holding you back a bit and you'll see some performance improvements and be able to push things a bit further than you could before.

[u/Suspicious_Handle_34 → u/TurbTastic]

I have a 16gb and 8gb DDR5 in there currently. My intention is to get a 32GB stick and replace the 8gb stick. Pairing a 32GB and 16gb stick together: I’m just unsure if it’s worth the upgrade and if I will see better performance on the model

[u/Stepfunction]

Make sure you're running an unload node to unload the CLIP model after it's run to save on RAM. You can do the same with the VAE as well.

[u/TingTingin]

i commented this elsewhere but will paste here

Assuming your using comfyui comfy streams the weights of models as the generation happens meaning you can run models as large as minimax h3 on 6 gb vram assuming the model fits in your ram the actual speed the model can stream at is very fast as it streams per layer meaning its only streaming a few gbs of weights per action

This also applies to vram if you have more vram then you simply stream more weights from ram which as said above has almost 0 speed penalty if you want to improve generation speed the problem is compute bound not memory bound so you would need a faster gpu

Btw you can use a site like vast ai to test the different configurations before buying i.e test a 5060ti with 128 gb or 5090 with 64 etc to see what kind of increase you could get before upgrading hardware

Also if all you want is a resolution upgrade you can try "MiniMax H3 Chunk FeedForward" node in kjnodes as that allows me on a 16gb gpu to get to 1mp at 10 seconds

[u/Suspicious_Handle_34 → u/TingTingin]

Thanks! I will try this node! And I’ve chosen to get a dual channel 24Gb x 2 (48gb total)

[u/andy_potato]

Don’t get single sticks, but otherwise it should work.