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2 gig, 4 gig, 6 gig a dollar

L

luigi1

Senior member
I'm running an athlon 64 (3500+) with 1 gig of ram (512 x 2) in dual channel mode (no overclocking). I think if I use all four ram sockets to upgrade, I will lose dual channel mode and need to use 2t memory timings. What is the proformance of a system such as this as compaired to an Intel system. Is an Intel system fully upgradable as relates to memory subsystem? I would like to upgrade for the games I play (EQ2) but hate the price difference between 2 x 1 gig vs 4 x 512. I also think windows 64 and longhorn are going to make this a more common question than it is today.
Thank you for your time and please share your thoughts.
 
Simply put, you don't need 2 GB of RAM for EQ2.

in the future, add a piar of 512's. dual channel does little for performance.

In games your system will be faster than the equivalent intel. It will be close in everything else.(for the most part)
 
Does EQ use more than a gig of ram? I know that game brings a 6800Ultra to its knees....obviously taxing a video card doesn't mean using a lot of system ram...but still makes me wonder...
 
I'm pretty sure you keep dual channel when running with four sticks. You really don't need 2gb of ram though, and not being able to run at 1T will probably lower performance.
 
I remember reading somewhere that the more memory you give to EQ2 the more it will use. And that it's supposed to get better with more memory. It was in an article or review or something and one of the questions was about the system requirements. One of the developoers/programmers/whoever said that the more you give it the better it gets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I will find the article tonight if I get time. If not tonight tomorrow afternoon(i have one more final left tomorrow so tonight will be pretty busy).
 
Originally posted by: Tarrant64
I remember reading somewhere that the more memory you give to EQ2 the more it will use. And that it's supposed to get better with more memory. It was in an article or review or something and one of the questions was about the system requirements. One of the developoers/programmers/whoever said that the more you give it the better it gets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I will find the article tonight if I get time. If not tonight tomorrow afternoon(i have one more final left tomorrow so tonight will be pretty busy).
Click to expand...


well of course. But how much is that increase? 2%? 5%? is it worth spending more than $100 on? I doubt it as of now

 
there is a thread in the CPU forum about 2T memory with the A64, and the results indicate a marginal decrease in performance. on the order of 3% going to 2T from 1T in apps that are sensitive to RAM bandwidth and virtually no penalty in those that aren't.

So a small penalty.

As to going to 2GB for EQII, in the places that it will help, I imagine the increase is more than 3%. In the places where 2GB won't hlep there is probably a VERY minimal impact of 2T vs. 1T. I went to 1.5GB in WoW from 1GB, and the difference is noticeable when loading and in places with many people at once. Alt-Tabbing out is WAY less painful too. I imagine you'll see a reasonable boost from 2GB from 1GB, but not spectacular.
 
Thanks for your insightful reply. Let me try to repharase the question. I had an anthlon with 512m of memory that would downclock if i added any more (additional socketes or not). so I upgraded to an AMD 64 only to find AMD did the same thing to me. If I up grade memory the system runs slower. Does the Intel side have a simlar problem? or can you upgrade memory without degrading the memory subsystem?
 
Actualy for EQ2 having 2 gig of ram will make a differance. I went to 2gig for SWG because it was using the page file a lot, and it made a huge differance, as I was getting a lot of lag when the page file was in use. It will drop your ram to 333mhz and put you at 2T, but most likely won't slow it down enough to be noticable, but it will still be in dual channel mode, and should improve performance for EQ2. The venice core has the fix for the memory dropping to 333mhz when using 4 sticks of ram, not sure if it still runs it at 2T or not.

That is one of the downsides to having the mem controller on the CPU, while it greatly improves performance, if the mem controller is limiting you, or if a new type of memory comes out, you have to change the CPU, instead of just the motherboard.
 
Thank you for your reply. If im running 333mhz at 2t timings how does that compare to an Intel system? How does an Intel system compare? Why wont any one answer this question? How does an Intell system compare to an AMD system at these degraded timings?
 
An Intel chipset motherboard, would be able to run 4 sticks of ram at 400mhz, however even a 3.8ghz P4 doesn't compare to an A64 3500+, especialy for gaming. A64's are not bandwidth limited like P4's are, so the ram dropping to 333mhz has very little impact, where on an Intel system, it would starve the CPU. Basicly, the A64 uses the memory much more efficiently and has much lower memory latency due to the onboard memory controler, so it doesn't need high memory bandwidth to keep itself going..
 
If you are considering going Intel, you might as well not do that, but instead sell your current processor, buy a Venice, and upgrade to 4x512MB of RAM which will run at 400MHz at 2T timings (2T is not an issue really), and that will be faster than any Intel system you can get.
 
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