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4 GB of system memory in a gaming computer: Useful or a waste?

B

BeakerChem

Senior member
I am trying to determine if I should buy 4 sticks of OCZ 1024MB PC3200 for my upcoming gaming computer system. I was going to run WindowsXP-32 bit and have caught some comments about how more than 2 GB is wasted.

The specs on the memory are 2-3-2-5-T1, and I can get 2-2-2-5-T1 on matched 512Mb sticks if I was going to work with 2GBs instead, but I wanted to know if having 4Gb would work better.
 
Right now? Total waste. No single application can access more than 2GB of RAM in 32-bit Windows anyway.

It's not "wasted", but you are very unlikely to utilize that much RAM while gaming. The only thing I could think of that *might* go past 2GB is running multiple MMORPG clients at the same time, along with a bunch of other background processes.
 
Thanks for the quick answers!

It seems the initial thoughts at least are that 4 GB is a waste for now. How about for future-proofing a system, or are other components likely to need replacing anyway before 4 GB is useful?
 
Originally posted by: BeakerChem
Thanks for the quick answers!

It seems the initial thoughts at least are that 4 GB is a waste for now. How about for future-proofing a system, or are other components likely to need replacing anyway before 4 GB is useful?
Click to expand...

By the time we're needing 4gigs, we wont be using pc3200 anymore. We'll be on DDR2 or something not made yet.
 
Originally posted by: BeakerChem
I am trying to determine if I should buy 4 sticks of OCZ 1024MB PC3200 for my upcoming gaming computer system. I was going to run WindowsXP-32 bit and have caught some comments about how more than 2 GB is wasted.

The specs on the memory are 2-3-2-5-T1, and I can get 2-2-2-5-T1 on matched 512Mb sticks if I was going to work with 2GBs instead, but I wanted to know if having 4Gb would work better.
Click to expand...

YES! It would be much better! Buy 4 gigs and send 3 to me. Then I can sell them and buy a brand new 6800GT! 😉








😀
Sorry, my sarcasm gene kicked in. The folks above are correct, a gig is just right for a gaming system right now.

Have fun building!
 
Utter waste. Get 1gb, maybe 2 if you play an MMORPG where you raid a lot or are constantly around a lot of other characters. Even then I have my doubts as to the usefulness of more than 1gb.
 
Cool. Thanks again! 🙂

Now I am trying to sift through all of the discussion on if 2 - 1 GB sticks of 2-3-2-5-T1 are faster than 4 512MB sticks of 2-2-2-5-T1 (all duel sided - ASUS "A8N-SLI Deluxe" nForce4 SLI MB)
 
Actually, good MMORPHS will eat up 2GB of ram if it has access to it. I know I myself lagged when entering WoW with a few hundred players in one town. (Damn idiots) And I'm running with 2GB of ram.
 
Originally posted by: Kensai
Actually, good MMORPHS will eat up 2GB of ram if it has access to it. I know I myself lagged when entering WoW with a few hundred players in one town. (Damn idiots) And I'm running with 2GB of ram.
Click to expand...

Then that is not due to RAM limitations. IIRC Windows cannot allocate >2Gig to one specific program.

Additionally even if it could i highly doubt it was a RAM limitation. I would be more likely to believe Internet/LAN, CPU, and GPU.

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Originally posted by: Kensai
Actually, good MMORPHS will eat up 2GB of ram if it has access to it. I know I myself lagged when entering WoW with a few hundred players in one town. (Damn idiots) And I'm running with 2GB of ram.
Click to expand...

Then that is not due to RAM limitations. IIRC Windows cannot allocate >2Gig to one specific program.

Additionally even if it could i highly doubt it was a RAM limitation. I would be more likely to believe Internet/LAN, CPU, and GPU.

-Kevin
Click to expand...

I've just had this discussion about WindowsXP-32bit and allocation. I think where 4 GB would help is where you are throwing 2 GB at one application you wouldn't have to worry about the OS and the other programs you are running dipping into that supply.

The thing I am hearing though is that I will never need to through 2 GB at a gaming application. Kind of like the 512MB vid cards. Not likely that memory is the slowdown on the current gen cards.
 
Yeah, at this point I'd get 2 gigs max and then either save the money by not getting additional ram or spend it elsewhere in your system and you'll get better performance in the end.
 
It'll come in handy if you frequent the AH at IF a lot. Talk about a massive gathering. Even more fun when the horde does a raid on IF at peak hours. OMFG!
 
This isn't a gaming related question, but I can't seem to find a reliable answer to it.

I've hit that 2 GB windows process limit several times in the last month (3d cad stuff), and come close to 3GB total on several occasions.

My question is, if I moved to a x86-64 capable computer, and ran xp-64 along with my 32-bit apps, would the 32 bit apps be able to use more than 2GB?

I really hate that "windows is out of memory, xxxx application will now close" error.
 
If you have 4 instead of 2 GB it is not wasted, and not unused.

However, the performance advantage is usually very small unless you have applications permanently touching more than 2 GB of data. Since 32 bit XP limits you to 2 GB VM by default this is very unlikely to happen unless you run several processes. Or have a lot of virusses installed 🙂

If you have less then the extra memory will still help you through the disk cache and generally the kernel never bothering to ever try to "be prepared" for maybe coming huge memory requests and kicking pages out (kernels do that). But unless you do a lot of file work this is unlikely to result in a speedup.

Also, with socket 754 you cannot drive three and with 939 you cannot drive three to four memory sticks at full speed. For gaming in particular you are likely to come out slower overall except for the loading times.
 
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