Question Affect of going from 16GB to 32GB

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Just wondering - have any of you noticed much of a difference in your systems when going from 16GB of RAM to 32GB?

 

[igor_kavinski]

I did add a chrome extension

That could be it. Can you please share a link?

 

[kschendel]

Ah, no. Ranks are independent of DIMMs.

True.

It doesn't matter if they're on separate DIMMs.

Not really true. Two DIMMs represent two separate electrical loads, with slightly different parasitic inductances / capacitances because they are on two different DIMM slots. Two ranks on one DIMM look much more like a single electrical load to the memory controller line drivers. Whether this matters depends on the robustness of the memory controller. (For instance, it likely wouldn't matter to a pre-12th-gen Intel CPU; it most certainly will matter to a Zen 1 CPU.)

If you have two ranks on one channel, whether it's a dual-ranked DIMM or a pair of single ranked DIMM, the memory controller can interleave refresh on one rank with accesses on the other.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Not really true. Two DIMMs represent two separate electrical loads, with slightly different parasitic inductances / capacitances because they are on two different DIMM slots. Two ranks on one DIMM look much more like a single electrical load to the memory controller line drivers. Whether this matters depends on the robustness of the memory controller. (For instance, it likely wouldn't matter to a pre-12th-gen Intel CPU; it most certainly will matter to a Zen 1 CPU.)

Are there differences? Yes. Do they matter from a user perspective? Still no.

That whole Zen1 "weak" memory controller was way overblown. It just behaves differently then Intels. Further, a lot of issues have been fixed in newer AGESA. With the newest AGESA 1207 you can use settings which would have been impossible at launch day. I should know. I've had a 1700 from literally launch day, and with the newest AGESA it uses settings* that would have been impossible back then. Further rebar support has even been added.

*Wouldn't even boot with memory set at anything above 2400MHz. Today? Runs at 2933MHz all day long with tight timings. It can sort of do 3000MHz, but is not completely stable. 3066MHz can boot fine, but is not really stable enough for everyday use. Further, my 1700 is a -really bad- example of one.

 

[Ajay]

That could be it. Can you please share a link?

The Marvellous Suspender

Lass deinen Computer geschmeidiger laufen, in dem du Tabs aussetzen lässt, die du nicht benutzt

chrome.google.com

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Ended up getting 16GB Crucial sodimm (2 x 8), to quadruple the system's memory from 4gb. total cost was under $40 with tax, shipped. Then I put Linux Mint on it, and am playing around with that on a 480 GB PNY SSD that I got at walmart about a year ago for $15.

 

[igor_kavinski]

480 GB PNY SSD that I got at walmart about a year ago for $15.

Excellent deal!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Good news for me. Ram was at 95% today. Looked at Chrome's task manager and it showed only 10 active tabs, despite several Chrome windows each with dozens and dozens of tabs. So Chrome is finally putting inactive tabs to sleep. Firefox was eating up 12GB. Killed it and RAM usage dropped to 40%. Now at 52% after relaunching Firefox.

 

[mv2devnull]

$ free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            31Gi       2.1Gi        26Gi        89Mi       2.5Gi        28Gi
Swap:          4.0Gi          0B       4.0Gi

but that is with only one tab in Firefox and three terminals ...

 

[igor_kavinski]

$ free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            31Gi       2.1Gi        26Gi        89Mi       2.5Gi        28Gi
Swap:          4.0Gi          0B       4.0Gi

but that is with only one tab in Firefox and three terminals ...

So Linux (or your particular distro) doesn't pre-cache OS components in RAM for faster access.

 

[mv2devnull]

My particular (kernel 5.14), I'd say (or my use pattern). A peek into two other systems (different Linux distro, kernel 3.10):

[A]$ free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            15G        7.4G        442M        255M        7.7G        7.6G
Swap:          4.0G        1.3G        2.7G

[B]$ free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            62G        6.2G         48G        137M        8.5G         55G
Swap:          4.0G          0B        4.0G

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Somewhere else during the last several days I mentioned how my flagship system, when variously put to sleep or in hibernate, would show laggy screen response when awakened, and sluggy software response. Now -- turns out that (only) some of the software was accessing files across my network on the server. Occasionally there's evidence that the sleep/hibernate power states did not play nice with open files and connections with the LAN, but files were never "damaged" -- per se.

Still, I'd feel the need to shut all the software down and Restart the system to get back well-deserved performance.

I've had CCleaner Pro on this system since it was built. Did I ever think to use it thoughtfully (so "remembered" accounts and passwords were preserved)? No, not until the other day.

So between the (Primo-)caching to large L1 RAM, the NVME drives, and just an old Kaby Lake processor (or Skylake in a twin system), I have no incentive to upgrade for Alder lake or Z690.

Software licenses for things like PrimoCache are "lifetime". I keep wondering, with 7,000 MB/s NVME drives or PCIE v.4.0 and DDR5 RAM, would it make much difference? With an octo/deca/dodeca-core processor?

I'm just in no hurry to find out. After I ran the CCleaner through its paces, I impressed myself.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I keep wondering, with 7,000 MB/s NVME drives or PCIE v.4.0 and DDR5 RAM, would it make much difference?

For your particular use case, it doesn't make sense to upgrade unless you are running some CPU intensive workload that makes you wait too long. But you should still keep an emergency plan ready in case you suddenly need to buy a new system due to some accident or any other calamity out of your control. For me, here's my emergency plan:

If my Broadwell desktop suddenly decides to die tomorrow, I would get Core i5-12400 with Asus H610M mobo.
If my 3rd gen laptop gives up the ghost tomorrow, I would get a cheap HP 5700U laptop for less than $500.

But if they keep going well into the future, my desktop target is Zen 4/5 and laptop target is AMD Phoenix or Dragon Range.

And if I can still manage to hold onto my "ancient" hardware till 2026, I might be looking at Zen 6 or Intel Nova Lake.