Look... check the task manager... and look up at the processes... some times.... I had the Outerra.exe opened up 3x times... the processor was running like crazy and the ram was up as well.. maybe it is something like that... or some other program is eating your "goodies".
( .. eh.. yeah.. and try looking for extra answers.. play with your imagination... check everything.. double check... triple check... be a control freak with all your programs, firewall, internet connection.. everything!... try to see what is going on
) ... But if the problem still persists... personally I blame the WD hdd... btw... have you had windows xp ever running on it?... you can immediately know if the hdd is the problem... I had extreme problems in Outerra because of the HDD before I changed it... I had enormous lag spikes... everything was loading slow... sometimes even folders made problems.. but anyway.. that is one of my last thoughts that come in mind... you just check the assessment of your resources.And try that thing with the 2x4GB rams you got... maybe they work... and you will have just those you don't need 12GB.. you can handle 8GB... if the motherboard can handle it.Or maybe you need to calibrate the ram... for example I changed all the clock rotation of mine.. cause it made my PC glitch... when I was forcing my computer too hard.. sh!t started happening... restarts.. shut downs.. etc.. ).
Oh yeah... and lower the details a bit... maybe it will work better... less resource consumption.