4gb v 8gb

[Spurs986]

Got a 4gb computer, jus wondering if 8gb willmake a huge diff if i dont do gaming?

 

[DSF]

Depends on what you do do.

Haha, I just said do do.

Seriously though, there's no way for us to give you a useful answer unless we know what the rest of your system looks like and what OS/applications you use. Off the top of my head I would say it won't do much for you, but that's a shot in the dark until we know more.

 

[Ariste]

For almost any application - and certainly for simple everyday computing - 4GB is plenty, and you will see no benefit by doubling it.

 

[ShadowFlareX]

You won't see any difference with 8GB, it may even perform slightly less vs 4GB. Nevertheless... I got myself 8GB anyway
One thing I know & experience, the more memory you have, the longer your HDD grinds for getting Super Fetch ready.

 

[AshPhoenix]

The new version of "2GB vs 4GB" :laugh:

 

[The Odorous One]

pfffffff.....

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981

 

[zerogear]

Well, if you have Vista, you actually might see a benefit, especially if you have SuperFetch enabled (by default). I'm using Vista x64, and it is constantly pushing around 3.9gb, and when video editing, it shoots up to 6gb. I have swapping enabled, but it rarely accesses it now.

 

[guptasa1]

I think it also depends on what kind of mobo you're getting. I was debating this same question and ended up getting 4GB (2x2GB) for my X48 for a couple reasons:

- 2 DIMMS should mean slightly more stability since you're cutting your chance of failure in half over 4.
- I can run 2 DIMMS safely at higher speeds than 4 as 4 will tax the bus more, and they generally recommend you lower the speed if all DIMM slots are filled because it can cause memory controller issues.
- I've seen a lot of people having problems getting 4 to run on these higher end boards. It's certainly possible, but it can be a pain. 2 stable at high speeds is hard enough! =oP

In the end, I think I'll be happy with 4 for a good while.

 

[Yellowbeard]

Originally posted by: Spurs986
Got a 4gb computer, jus wondering if 8gb willmake a huge diff if i dont do gaming?

It will depend on what it is that you DO use the system for. Not to sound smart but, if you have to ask, you probably don't "need" it.

Are you doing HEAVY video editing, CAD, multiple VMs, graphics work with HUGE files? And, are any apps you use encoding to be large address aware or are they capped at 2GB?

 

[octopus41092]

Originally posted by: The Odorous One
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981

:laugh:

But seriously 4GB is probably plenty and going to be for some time unless you ARE going to be doing stuff with massive files.

 

[yours truly]

Originally posted by: The Odorous One
pfffffff.....

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981

bill gates never said that. its a myth

 

[taltamir]

no it isn't, he said it.
Today he claims it has been taken out of context (saying he referred to a specific type of word processing)

 

[OCGuy]

I like how he asks "For gaming", and people ask what he will use if for :/


8GB is MASSIVE overkill for gaming.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
I like how he asks "For gaming", and people ask what he will use if for :/


8GB is MASSIVE overkill for gaming.

You might want to reread the OP.

 

[Modelworks]

I do CAD and 3d work and I rarely use 4GB of ram.
Most of the time I hit around 3.6GB usage.
I do see 8GB usage and more on the render boxes , but that is because they are using huge textures and rendering in 1080p resolutions.

 

[n7]

8 GB isn't really overkill, though it's not usually necessary per say.

I don't really like bothering with these threads, because they tend to be filled with people saying how you only need this much RAM, more is a waste, etc.

Those same people almost never have actually had 8 GB vs. 4 GB, which well, you can decide for yourself how valuable that makes their opinions.

I'm not saying you need 8 GB, but i'll say what i've said a zillion times on AT now.

If you run Vista 64, the more RAM you have, the more it puts to use.
And not just to Superfetch either.

The other day i was play GRID with my normal stuff running in the background, which isn't too many things, & i was watching task manager...i was using around 3.9-4.1 GB.

Again, 4 GB is certainly fine.

But if you have 8 GB & like multitasking a bit, i highly doubt you'd be unhappy with that decision, especially with RAM pricing being so good right now.

 

[Scotteq]

I ram Vista 64 with 4GB for quite a while and since DDR2 prices dropped so much and "Because I Can, That's Why", I upgraded to 8GB.

I noticed no difference in top speeds in day to day usage. I did turn the swap file down to 512MB and saved a little disc space. And while I didn't see much in the way of improvements, I can say for sure that *nothing* I do bogs the computer down now. Go Ahead; Encode, Decode, and Game at the same time! Alt/Tab back and forth between Crysis and CoD2!!

Down side?? Some motherboards don't like running 4 DIMMS at once, so you may have to do some extra setup/tweaking to get things running smoothly. And if you're shooting for big overclock numbers, a 4 x 2 GB setup is likely to be a limiting factor due to the added stress on the Front Side.

 

[imported_spike99]

Those same people almost never have actually had 8 GB vs. 4 GB, which well, you can decide for yourself how valuable that makes their opinions.

I have 4GB at the time but about 2 months ago I was wondering if 8GB would be better than 4GB. I mostly do gaming and the below is test I did to check if it made any difference....

I got the below results:
COH
4GB - 58.6 (AVG), 62 (MAX), 6.9 (MIN) fps
8GB - 58.6 (AVG), 62 (MAX), 4.9 (MIN) fps

CRYSIS
4GB - 25 (AVG), 29.13 (MAX) fps
8GB - 24.62(AVG), 28.83 (MAX) fps

So as you can see, surprisingly 8GB actually turned out to be slightly slower. I returned the extra 4GB and stayed with 4GB.

I would say it depends what you do with your PC, but if it's for gaming... stick with 4GB

 

[Modelworks]

Granted it was poorly written but , read OP again, slowly.

Got a 4gb computer, jus wondering if 8gb willmake a huge diff if i dont do gaming?

 

[firewolfsm]

For games, no. For photoshop, 3D, and a lot of video work, yes.

 

[MrX8503]

Originally posted by: Spurs986
Got a 4gb computer, jus wondering if 8gb willmake a huge diff if i dont do gaming?

Does this mean you do 3d renderings and video editing? If you just do word docs/surf/music, then obviously no its not going to make a difference.

4gb handles games+office work pretty nicely.

Now if your talking about video/adobe software/3d renderings. Then I say yes to 8gb. I believe once standard def 4:3 dies and 1080p becomes mainstream, 8gb will seem like nothing.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: n7
8 GB isn't really overkill, though it's not usually necessary per say.

I don't really like bothering with these threads, because they tend to be filled with people saying how you only need this much RAM, more is a waste, etc.

Those same people almost never have actually had 8 GB vs. 4 GB, which well, you can decide for yourself how valuable that makes their opinions.

I'm not saying you need 8 GB, but i'll say what i've said a zillion times on AT now.

If you run Vista 64, the more RAM you have, the more it puts to use.
And not just to Superfetch either.

The other day i was play GRID with my normal stuff running in the background, which isn't too many things, & i was watching task manager...i was using around 3.9-4.1 GB.

Again, 4 GB is certainly fine.

But if you have 8 GB & like multitasking a bit, i highly doubt you'd be unhappy with that decision, especially with RAM pricing being so good right now.

:thumbsup:

 

[Jessica69]

Well, I moved to 8GB of memory months ago.......

Did I need to? Probably not.....even though I'm running Vista Ult. 64, it probably would have done just fine with my 2 x 2GB set. But the price was just too good on the second to pass it by (Mushkin Redline DDR2-1000.)

And running my 4 x 2GB set of RAM on my Asus Maximus Formula, I managed to eek out a 4.0GHz Prime 95 stable run on a Q6600 @ 1.55V. Not too shabby for having all four RAM slots populated.....and didn't have to do any hard or weird RAM configurations to get it there, either. I'd honestly think the X48 motherboards should give at least as equal a performance as my X38 board, given the right set of hardware.

 

[darkrisen2003]

well how about this. Wouldnt 8gb make running a game and recording video with fraps work smoother?

 

[Ratman6161]

Originally posted by: n7
8 GB isn't really overkill, though it's not usually necessary per say.

I don't really like bothering with these threads, because they tend to be filled with people saying how you only need this much RAM, more is a waste, etc.

Those same people almost never have actually had 8 GB vs. 4 GB, which well, you can decide for yourself how valuable that makes their opinions.

I'm not saying you need 8 GB, but i'll say what i've said a zillion times on AT now.

If you run Vista 64, the more RAM you have, the more it puts to use.
And not just to Superfetch either.

The other day i was play GRID with my normal stuff running in the background, which isn't too many things, & i was watching task manager...i was using around 3.9-4.1 GB.

Again, 4 GB is certainly fine.

But if you have 8 GB & like multitasking a bit, i highly doubt you'd be unhappy with that decision, especially with RAM pricing being so good right now.

Actually I do have two systems - one with an E6600 and 4 GB at work and one with a q6600 and 8 GB at home. I do a lot of work with VMware virtual machines. For pretty much anything else I do, there is very little noticable difference between the two. However when I get a couple of VM's running at the same time and the Host machine is also doing a couple of tasks, thats where the quad core and 8 GB really feels better. Both systems running Vista Enterprise 64 bit BTW.