2gb ram vs. 4gb ram

[ervinshiznit]

Is there any tangible benefit of 4gb ram over 2gb ram in a gaming pc?
The comp would be running XP or Vista 32 bit, so it's only going to see 3.1gb...

The other relevant hardware:
8800gts 640mb
E6700
Asus P5B Plus, or Deluxe
RAID 0 HDD's

 

[pcslookout]

It depends on what kind of games you are playing.

If the game you are playing requires 1 GB of ram just for the minimum system requirements, like this game 1 GB of ram is required as the minimum not recommeded. Yes you have read that right. Not even SC says it requires 1 GB of ram minimum on its pc game box , then you may get a good advantage with 4 gig vs 2 gig.

Though if you have a Raptor it may not make as big of a difference.

I dare anyone here to find me another game that has a minimum system requirements of 1 gig of ram as well. A lot of games have it as recommended but not many as minimum.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I dare anyone here to find me another game that has a minimum system requirements of 1 gig of ram as well. A lot of games have it as recommended but not many as minimum.

Is that a "double-dog dare"?

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I dare anyone here to find me another game that has a minimum system requirements of 1 gig of ram as well. A lot of games have it as recommended but not many as minimum.

Is that a "double-dog dare"?

:laugh:

 

[Kakumba]

4 gigs is great for newer RTS (Sup Com and I am sure there will be more coming out that use huge amounts of RAM), I have 2 GB, and on a huge map with max players and units, it uses all my RAM and a fair chunk of page file. It probably worth it, but only just, if you were running 64 bit, worth it for sure.

 

[Gerbil333]

Go for 4GB. I wavered between 1GB and 2GB back in 2005 and settled on 2GB, knowing I wouldn't rebuild the system for 3-4 years. Future-proofing is a bad way to build, but I'm glad I went with 2GB. If Vista didn't suck so much, I'd go for 4GB now, even though I only have one program that consumes 2GB (Adobe Premiere).

 

[bob4432]

hell even some current or not so current game are using tons of ram @ only 1280x1024. bf2 w/ the desert conflict mod is using ~1.8GB by itself on some maps....

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Kakumba
4 gigs is great for newer RTS (Sup Com and I am sure there will be more coming out that use huge amounts of RAM), I have 2 GB, and on a huge map with max players and units, it uses all my RAM and a fair chunk of page file. It probably worth it, but only just, if you were running 64 bit, worth it for sure.

It seems like a lot of ram really helps in multiplayer games or games like simcity. I wonder how big a multiplayer game needs to be to use over 8 GB of ram and start using the page file?

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: bob4432
hell even some current or not so current game are using tons of ram @ only 1280x1024. bf2 w/ the desert conflict mod is using ~1.8GB by itself on some maps....

Do you have any other system tray icons load in the background or do you close everything ? If you close everything then that means with some games if we want to multi task with a lot of system tray icons and windows left over 4 GB should be the bare minimum and 8 GB ideal :Q

 

[lxskllr]

If you use Vista, then I think there is a tangible benefit. Superfetch can fill the extra ram for you, and make even non-gaming applications a bit faster. In XP there'd be less of a benefit, but with ram prices the way they are, why not go 4gb?

 

[Kakumba]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Kakumba
4 gigs is great for newer RTS (Sup Com and I am sure there will be more coming out that use huge amounts of RAM), I have 2 GB, and on a huge map with max players and units, it uses all my RAM and a fair chunk of page file. It probably worth it, but only just, if you were running 64 bit, worth it for sure.

It seems like a lot of ram really helps in multiplayer games or games like simcity. I wonder how big a multiplayer game needs to be to use over 8 GB of ram and start using the page file?

8GB? Man, that would have to be HUGE. I am literally talking about the biggest map, at 1680x1050, at the highest details that are still playable. So, pretty much maxing things out as much as I can, and even then, 4GB would be plenty. I don't see 8GB being useful till around 2009.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Kakumba

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Kakumba
4 gigs is great for newer RTS (Sup Com and I am sure there will be more coming out that use huge amounts of RAM), I have 2 GB, and on a huge map with max players and units, it uses all my RAM and a fair chunk of page file. It probably worth it, but only just, if you were running 64 bit, worth it for sure.

It seems like a lot of ram really helps in multiplayer games or games like simcity. I wonder how big a multiplayer game needs to be to use over 8 GB of ram and start using the page file?

8GB? Man, that would have to be HUGE. I am literally talking about the biggest map, at 1680x1050, at the highest details that are still playable. So, pretty much maxing things out as much as I can, and even then, 4GB would be plenty. I don't see 8GB being useful till around 2009.

Are you sure about that? A lot of DX10 games haven't even come out yet. I would say more around end of 2007.

 

[mancunian]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
Do you have any other system tray icons load in the background or do you close everything ? If you close everything then that means with some games if we want to multi task with a lot of system tray icons and windows left over 4 GB should be the bare minimum and 8 GB ideal :Q

:roll:

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
It depends on what kind of games you are playing.

If the game you are playing requires 1 GB of ram just for the minimum system requirements, like this game 1 GB of ram is required as the minimum not recommeded. Yes you have read that right. Not even SC says it requires 1 GB of ram minimum on its pc game box , then you may get a good advantage with 4 gig vs 2 gig.

Though if you have a Raptor it may not make as big of a difference.

I dare anyone here to find me another game that has a minimum system requirements of 1 gig of ram as well. A lot of games have it as recommended but not many as minimum.

Battlefield 2 states 512MB as the minimum, but everyone knows that's suicide even in XP.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Kakumba

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Kakumba
4 gigs is great for newer RTS (Sup Com and I am sure there will be more coming out that use huge amounts of RAM), I have 2 GB, and on a huge map with max players and units, it uses all my RAM and a fair chunk of page file. It probably worth it, but only just, if you were running 64 bit, worth it for sure.

It seems like a lot of ram really helps in multiplayer games or games like simcity. I wonder how big a multiplayer game needs to be to use over 8 GB of ram and start using the page file?

8GB? Man, that would have to be HUGE. I am literally talking about the biggest map, at 1680x1050, at the highest details that are still playable. So, pretty much maxing things out as much as I can, and even then, 4GB would be plenty. I don't see 8GB being useful till around 2009.

Are you sure about that? A lot of DX10 games haven't even come out yet. I would say more around end of 2007.

8GB? How does one even get that much RAM? 4 sticks at 2GB each, do they even make 2GB sticks?

 

[PianoMan]

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf

8GB? How does one even get that much RAM? 4 sticks at 2GB each, do they even make 2GB sticks?

Yes they do. When I looked at them several months ago, 4GB(2x2GB) sets were costing $400+. They've now settled back down to the $200's.

PM

 

[pcslookout]

You can get 2 GB sticks for as low as $80 to $100 now. You may take a few risk though because you may not know exactly how it will overclock if you do that.

 

[themisfit610]

For gaming, I think there's little use in having 4 GB (3 GB available) of RAM.

For video encoding however, the move to 64 bit is slowly happening. Encoding high definition H.264 video with some hungry deinterlacers and or other filters can easily push up against the 2GB per process limitation in 32 bit.

In fact, in the ideal world you would have enough RAM to run two encodes in parallel to more efficiently use quad and 8 core systems, so in this instance having 8+ GB of RAM isn't unthinkable. Now if the 64 bit video encoding software would stabilize a bit, I would be happy!

~MiSfit

 

[Ichigo]

How much worse is a single stick of 2GB compared to 2 sticks of 1GB?

 

[lamere]

i noticed a nice jump in overall system response, and gaming when i went from 2GB to 3GB.
I would say the biggest difference was in gaming for sure. XP only sees 2.8GB of mine anyway so when you do go to vista you'll get to use all of it.
I'd say got for it, ram has actually come down a bit lately.

 

[ervinshiznit]

well if I had 2gb...I would have enough room in my budget for a 8800gtx.
If i have 4gb...i would be using getting the 640mb 8800gts.

Which do you think is better?

 

[lxskllr]

If it were me I'd get a e6600 instead of the e6700, then use the money you save to get 4gb ram and the 8800gtx.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
If it were me I'd get a e6600 instead of the e6700, then use the money you save to get 4gb ram and the 8800gtx.

:thumbsup: