• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Going from 4gb to 12gb - is it worth it?

S

SickBeast

Lifer
Newegg has an 8gb of ram kit on sale for $70 shipped. I'm considering adding it to my rig for a total of 12gb.

I mainly game and surf the web on my computer. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit.

Will I notice a difference? Would my money be better spent on an SSD?

I'm worried that memory prices are going to rise.

Just looking now in task manager, I only have 900mb "free", with 1400mb "cached", and 2100mb "available".

Should I do it?

TIA
 
jjmIII said:
Yes, yes, and yes.

Memory is so cheap ....DDR3 at least. What mobo?
Click to expand...

I've got an MSI motherboard with an AMD 770 chipset. It's a cheap crossfire Phenom II motherboard.

Memory is indeed cheap. I'm considering buying this now or else just going with some faster 2000mhz memory down the line. The stuff on sale is 1333mhz, along with my current memory.
 
Well, the "shell shocker" deal expired anyway. Thanks everyone for your input. I'm thinking an SSD will be my next upgrade.
 
no, not for gaming.

SSD is worth it man pull the trigger, i installed a 120GB intel last week and it was easaly the best computer upgrade i have EVER DONE IN MY LIFE. And thats saying alot since at one point i went from a 900mhz duron/Gerforce 2 to a 3Ghz Athlon dual core/4830, the SSD was still a better upgrade when not gaming 🙂
 
Rifterut said:
no, not for gaming.

SSD is worth it man pull the trigger, i installed a 120GB intel last week and it was easaly the best computer upgrade i have EVER DONE IN MY LIFE. And thats saying alot since at one point i went from a 900mhz duron/Gerforce 2 to a 3Ghz Athlon dual core/4830, the SSD was still a better upgrade when not gaming 🙂
Click to expand...

Well, I need a 120gb SSD in order to properly benefit from one. I'm waiting for them to hit the $80 mark or so. Hopefully within the next year I'll see a hot deal on one.

Thanks for the input though! It's been on my list of upgrades for quite some time now.
 
SickBeast said:
Well, I need a 120gb SSD in order to properly benefit from one. I'm waiting for them to hit the $80 mark or so. Hopefully within the next year I'll see a hot deal on one.

Thanks for the input though! It's been on my list of upgrades for quite some time now.
Click to expand...

Was on my list too for a long time, i just kept blowing it off thinking it wouldnt be so fast. I had seen the benchmarks but it really didnt seem like it was going to be that fast. I've used 4 disk 15k SAS arrays which had faster writes/reads so thought i had a grasp on what a SSD would bring, boy was i wrong, random small reads/writes are much more important 🙂

and i agree 120GB at $80 would be ideal, but i think it will be mroe than 1 year till thats a reality.
 
Yes, no, maybe

What apps are you running? When your machine is at its heaviest load, how much memory do you have free? Are you gaming, video encoding, photoshop,,,,,.

If your doing a lot of high definition video encoding, then maybe so. If your a casual gamer, maybe not so much.
 
You probably want at least 6GB if you're gaming. It depends on your video card. Your system ram is generally reserved by your gpu at close to the same size as your graphics memory. Seeing how Win 7 64bit reserves a decent bit, you won't be left with much free. So your page file probably gets hit a bit. You should analyze that.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Show me one concrete OBSERVABLE difference in going from 4 gigs of memory to 12 gigs in gaming and/or web surfing. Just one.
Click to expand...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778.html

RAM won't effect FPS, but might effect load times. The performance from RAM might be better than getting an SSD (look at Ram Disk), but the price has to be right. Lack of RAM may also cause artifacts to appear in games, read the above article.

Still, IMHO 6GB should be standard, you should be looking at 12-16 if you want to tweak and have room for the future.
 
I've decided to hold off on all upgrades for now. My system is plenty fast. I can even run Crysis Warhead at 1920x1200 with most settings on "enthusiast" at 40+ FPS.

I'm wondering if I would benefit from running 32-bit Windows 7.
 
SickBeast said:
Just looking now in task manager, I only have 900mb "free", with 1400mb "cached", and 2100mb "available".
Click to expand...

Realize that Windows will pre-load stuff into memory that is sitting around doing nothing, so that programs launch faster. See above post by epidemis.
 
epidemis said:
Windows preloads often run executables in RAM if you got enough. It's called SuperFetch. Google it.
Click to expand...

So OP, there you have it, loading files larger than approx. 50 Mb loads a few seconds faster and if you run CS4, up to 10 seconds faster according to Tom's. It's not worth the money to me but hey, it's your call.
 
Personally, I've never seen my own system going over 1.7GB; granted I don't do much. But really, you want it, so don't fight it... 😀
 
Last edited:
Lead Butthead said:
Personally, I've never seen my own system going over 1.7GB; granted I don't do much. But really, you want it, so don't fight it... 😀
Click to expand...

Well, the price dropped to $65 for some nice Mushkin stuff so I bought it. I did some research and it turns out having more ram gives you better minimum framerates in games. I'm buying now because I think DDR3 memory prices have bottomed out, and I know I'm going to want more eventually.

When I'm gaming, Windows regularly goes down to about 50mb of "free" memory, so I figure with 12gb it can cache more and run faster.

I'm going to get an SSD as well, but I'm waiting for the next-gen Intel drives.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top