How much memory do I really need?

[khenderson]

EDIT:
I'm top posting this edit in hopes of catching everyone's eye:

First, thanks for the many replies and patience with my newbie confusion on this issue. Between this thread and others in this forum I think I've learned a lot.

Even so, let me redirect here just a bit. Let's say I've decided to go with 2 gigs (via two 1 gig sticks).

Now, let's say I expect I'll get away with a 400FSB (E6400) and I want to the system ram to run sycronous, then that will put me just right with DDR2-800 (400FSBx2). It looks like the less expensive 2gig PC-6400(DDR2-800) is typically running stock speed at 5-5-5-12(or 15). I'm assuming at this point that for me, a gamer with something like a x1900xt card, that going from 5-5-5 to 4-4-4 isn't going to make much of a difference in gaming performance. So shouldn't I just find the cheapest (mainstream) PC6400 brand I can find and just go with that? Afterall, if I don't mess with the timings, then what's the point of paying more for sticks that are good for overclocking? To my thinking, even though I'm increasing the FSB, I'll still be running the system ram with stock speed tolerances, right? I don't see any reason to overclock unless I'm buying something less that DDR-800 that easily overclocks to 800.

Right now NewEgg has some OCZ 2gig ddr-800 (5-5-5-12) for $220 shipped (after rebates). That's $110 /1gig stick. Is slower memory so much cheaper that it should be considered?

Sorry again for making such a mess of this thread... In my ignorance I wasn't able to get a more specific question together until now.

END OF EDIT



Following Anandtech's latest guide, I'm looking to build a system around the following core components:

Gigabyte GA-965p-S3
E6400 hopefully overclocked to around 3 Ghz
X1900 XT GPU (256, maybe 512MB)

The final variable I can't quite nail down is the system memory.

The guide suggests 2X1024MB Crucial PC2-6400 Ballistix

Now if I understand my overclocking basics, the CPU will run at X4 (quad) the FSB, so if I can hit 400 FSB I'll be at 3.2 Ghz, but I'd be happy to get 3.0 (with a stock cpu fan) and that seems reasonable from what I've read about this chip.

Again, if my OCing understanding is sound, I'll want to run memory at x2 FSB in order to keep it sycronious which means if I reach 400 FSB, I'll need memory capable of 800 FSB (i.e. PC-6400).

As for OCing, with a little more study I can try to get more out of the memory timings, but is there a general rule to what's more important... the timings or the bus speed?

In other words, knowing I'm using these components, knowing I'm only going for moderate overclocking, and knowing I'm primarily a gamer, is this memory overkill? With the higher price of memory, I'm guessing I might be able to use lesser (cheaper) memory and put the savings into a better GPU instead. If my guess is correct, this will provide a better bottom line performance gain.

I've been doing some research but there are a few to many variables to grasp and I'm hoping for a little spoon feeding. Even so, I'll humbling accept links or directions to newbie webpages, guides, etc.

Thanks if you can help

 

[lxskllr]

First off, that's the memory I got for my e6600 system. I think it may be slight overkill, but I wanted to have a buffer so I wouldn't run into memory issues. As I understand it, the timings aren't as important with the C2Ds as is bus speed. With the better memory I was also shooting for some kind of future proofing, but as we know that's just a crap shoot.

I don't know how good that gfx card is since I use Nvidia only. What I was going for though was a high medium end card that I wouldn't feel bad abandoning if a DX10 card proves useful. The game I'm waiting for is UT2k7, and if DX10 makes it look a great deal better I'll buy Vista and dual boot that with XP. In other words, I'm going to treat Vista as a game accessory, but for everyday stability I'll use XP. Who knows? Vista may end up working pretty well on it's release, but I'm not banking on it.

 

[khenderson]

Thanks for the post Ixskllr:

As you say, future proofing is a crap shoot and it's never paid off for me so I'm not looking to speed more to make this puppy upgradable. The one exception might be buying one 1G stick now and waiting a couple monts for the second, but I see no reason to believe memory is going to drop significantly in the near future so I'll bite the bullet now.

As for the graphics card, I haven't ruled out Nvidia but I'm ATI seems the best bang for buck right now. To my understanding for really high end PCs the graphics cards are currently behind the CPUs, so the GPU might also be the bottle neck for gaming performance. I'm assuming this at least somewhat applies to my midrange set up. Because I'm not leaving room to upgrade the card I only really need memory that provides bang-for-buck performance equal to the GPU. Not sure if that makes sense, but it's an example of the kind of variables I'm trying to wrap my newbie head around.

 

[zest]

2gb is enough for most stuff.

 

[Atheus]

You need about 256MB for regular office tasks, assuming you're going to run Windows. If not you could get by with 64 or even 32MB.

For playing modern games you need 1GB. You do not need 2, really, really you don't. You might want 2 for future proofing reasons, and to make sure absolutely everything is in main memory to get every last ounce of performance from the game, but no game requires 2GB. I have 1GB of overclocked DDR and an x1900xt and my machine plays all the newest titles extremely well, with high res textures, at 1280*1024 and higher.

It amazes me to see people recommending 2GB for normal PCs these days - 2 gigabytes is an insane amount of memory.

 

[acegazda]

No such thing as "future proofing"
If you run photoshop, outlook, and a few internet sites at the same time, you may need over 1gb, Perhaps 1.5gb. Still, not everyone will be running pro apps on their pc multitasking, so most users need ~1gb.
If you can find ddr2-800 for <$125 it may be worth it, but don't fay ridiculous prices for it. Good ocing RAM is g.skill 1gb ddr2-667. It is $115 shipped from newegg.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Atheus

It amazes me to see people recommending 2GB for normal PCs these days - 2 gigabytes is an insane amount of memory.

I believe 2GB will be where 1GB is today with Vista. Not far down the road 2GB will be where 512MB is now. :Q

If you install WinXP with no SP and check how much ram your system uses at a fresh boot then fully patch XP to SP2 and do it again. It's amazing how bloated it has become. Add A/V and other stuff and 512MB is barely enough.

It's ridiculous that we have mouse driver packages over 50MB and don't even get me started on SOUND CARD DRIVERS! (cough Creative SB - Super Bloat)

I just checked my Nero folder where I have older versions stored. Nero60023 downloaded in November of 2003 was 21,439 kB. The most recent one I have is Nero-7.5.1.1_eng and it's nearly TEN TIMES the size at 193,702 KB! :shocked: I'm drifting a little OT here but the packaging of useless things like yahoo and google toolbars into these things is out of control too. :|

Even the (non movie pirates) are going to need those terabyte drives just for operating system and software! :disgust:

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Atheus
You need about 256MB for regular office tasks, assuming you're going to run Windows. If not you could get by with 64 or even 32MB.

For playing modern games you need 1GB. You do not need 2, really, really you don't. You might want 2 for future proofing reasons, and to make sure absolutely everything is in main memory to get every last ounce of performance from the game, but no game requires 2GB. I have 1GB of overclocked DDR and an x1900xt and my machine plays all the newest titles extremely well, with high res textures, at 1280*1024 and higher.

It amazes me to see people recommending 2GB for normal PCs these days - 2 gigabytes is an insane amount of memory.

Most new games (FEAR, BF2, MMORPGs, others) are pushing 1GB pretty hard now. Vista has more memory overhead and will certainly push them over the mark.

BF2 (and by proxy the new battlefield coming out in a few weeks) specifically already uses over 1GB on 64 player maps.

 

[zest]

As for future proof I would say HDCP would be a definite requirement.
And a card(s) that are direct-x 10 .

A decent 256 or 512 that has DDR4 and these capability's is what to go for.

 

[khenderson]

acegazda,

I appreciate your advice and the advice of others here regarding how MUCH ram to get. I'll consider my options on that front.

As for the G.Skill, let me see if I understand... If I get DDR-667 doesn't that mean I'll be running a FSB of 333 max? And then, in turn, doesn't that mean that the best CPU overclock I can get is 2.66? If the bios allows me to run CPU bus at a different rate than the bus used by system ram, then I suppose it could work out, but then I would not be running in syncronous mode, right? So that in turn would cause a big peformance hit on the system ram?

Secondly, I notice that the G.Skill DDR2-800 (5-5-5-15) is essentially the same price as thte DDR2-667 (4-4-4-12). Are you saying that in the end, the lower timings make the 667 overall better than the 800? If so, is there a link or forumla or something that can help me better determine this on my own?

Thanks

 

[corkyg]

If you plan a future upgrade to Vista, the minimum is 512, and anything less than 1 GB will run slower than you might like. As Dawn says - the current sweet spot for the next year or two is 2 GB. You'll probably upgrade in 3 years.

 

[acegazda]

where is the ddr2-800 the same as the ddr2-667 in price? I would love to see that!
Anyway... the point of getting g.skill RAM is to overclock it really, that's what it's good for. That doesn't mean that the max fsb is the speed of the RAM though, you can put the fsb as high as the MoBo will let you, but it won't have a 1:1 ratio (RAM speed: fsb).
Also: speed is of slighly more importance than timings.

EDIT: heirarchy of importance: size>speed>timings

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: acegazda
where is the ddr2-800 the same as the ddr2-667 in price? I would love to see that!
Anyway... the point of getting g.skill RAM is to overclock it really, that's what it's good for. That doesn't mean that the max fsb is the speed of the RAM though, you can put the fsb as high as the MoBo will let you, but it won't have a 1:1 ratio (RAM speed: fsb).
Also: speed is of slighly more importance than timings.

EDIT: heirarchy of importance: size>speed>timings

Neither of those is really important, crap ddr2 533 at horrible timings is only about 10% slower than the most expensive stuff you can buy on Core2, even less on AMD.

Youre much better off spending the extra money elsewhere, like the video card.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Atheus
You need about 256MB for regular office tasks, assuming you're going to run Windows. If not you could get by with 64 or even 32MB.

For playing modern games you need 1GB. You do not need 2, really, really you don't. You might want 2 for future proofing reasons, and to make sure absolutely everything is in main memory to get every last ounce of performance from the game, but no game requires 2GB. I have 1GB of overclocked DDR and an x1900xt and my machine plays all the newest titles extremely well, with high res textures, at 1280*1024 and higher.

It amazes me to see people recommending 2GB for normal PCs these days - 2 gigabytes is an insane amount of memory.

Most new games (FEAR, BF2, MMORPGs, others) are pushing 1GB pretty hard now. Vista has more memory overhead and will certainly push them over the mark.

BF2 (and by proxy the new battlefield coming out in a few weeks) specifically already uses over 1GB on 64 player maps.

actually you can keep bf2 under 1GB with a computer that idles @ ~240MB on 64 player maps, it just depends what gpu you have and what texture settings. in my testing texture quality played a huge role in ram usage.

for some reason when i went to my x1800xt all thoughts went out the window - don't know why but when running that gpu even at the same settings as a x800xtpe ram usage went up ~300-500MB :shocked: with either ati drivers or omegas.

the only reason i have the link in my sig is that i know a lot of people still run high end agp cards (not here, but the general population), so i may as well give them the info to get the most out of their systems before they upgrade.

 

[Pabster]

2GB is plenty assuming you will stick with Windows XP.

If Vista is in your future, investing in 4GB isn't a bad idea. Though you might want to hold off as RAM prices are rather steep ATM.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Atheus
You need about 256MB for regular office tasks, assuming you're going to run Windows. If not you could get by with 64 or even 32MB.

For playing modern games you need 1GB. You do not need 2, really, really you don't. You might want 2 for future proofing reasons, and to make sure absolutely everything is in main memory to get every last ounce of performance from the game, but no game requires 2GB. I have 1GB of overclocked DDR and an x1900xt and my machine plays all the newest titles extremely well, with high res textures, at 1280*1024 and higher.

It amazes me to see people recommending 2GB for normal PCs these days - 2 gigabytes is an insane amount of memory.

Most new games (FEAR, BF2, MMORPGs, others) are pushing 1GB pretty hard now. Vista has more memory overhead and will certainly push them over the mark.

BF2 (and by proxy the new battlefield coming out in a few weeks) specifically already uses over 1GB on 64 player maps.

actually you can keep bf2 under 1GB with a computer that idles @ ~240MB on 64 player maps, it just depends what gpu you have and what texture settings. in my testing texture quality played a huge role in ram usage.

for some reason when i went to my x1800xt all thoughts went out the window - don't know why but when running that gpu even at the same settings as a x800xtpe ram usage went up ~300-500MB :shocked: with either ati drivers or omegas.

the only reason i have the link in my sig is that i know a lot of people still run high end agp cards (not here, but the general population), so i may as well give them the info to get the most out of their systems before they upgrade.

You are right, if you use low settings it wont use more than 1GB.

Reducing settings because you dont have enough ram with an X1900XT is just stupid.

 

[imported_Imp]

Best idea now is like others said, get 1 stick of 1 Gb Ram. More than adequate for today's stuff, and leave plenty of open slots to expand upon when necessary.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Imp
Best idea now is like others said, get 1 stick of 1 Gb Ram. More than adequate for today's stuff, and leave plenty of open slots to expand upon when necessary.

But then you dont have dual channel bandwidth, which does hurt real world performance.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Atheus
You need about 256MB for regular office tasks, assuming you're going to run Windows. If not you could get by with 64 or even 32MB.

For playing modern games you need 1GB. You do not need 2, really, really you don't. You might want 2 for future proofing reasons, and to make sure absolutely everything is in main memory to get every last ounce of performance from the game, but no game requires 2GB. I have 1GB of overclocked DDR and an x1900xt and my machine plays all the newest titles extremely well, with high res textures, at 1280*1024 and higher.

It amazes me to see people recommending 2GB for normal PCs these days - 2 gigabytes is an insane amount of memory.

Most new games (FEAR, BF2, MMORPGs, others) are pushing 1GB pretty hard now. Vista has more memory overhead and will certainly push them over the mark.

BF2 (and by proxy the new battlefield coming out in a few weeks) specifically already uses over 1GB on 64 player maps.

actually you can keep bf2 under 1GB with a computer that idles @ ~240MB on 64 player maps, it just depends what gpu you have and what texture settings. in my testing texture quality played a huge role in ram usage.

for some reason when i went to my x1800xt all thoughts went out the window - don't know why but when running that gpu even at the same settings as a x800xtpe ram usage went up ~300-500MB :shocked: with either ati drivers or omegas.

the only reason i have the link in my sig is that i know a lot of people still run high end agp cards (not here, but the general population), so i may as well give them the info to get the most out of their systems before they upgrade.

You are right, if you use low settings it wont use more than 1GB.

Reducing settings because you dont have enough ram with an X1900XT is just stupid.

not low, medium - high, but with a x1900xt you should do 2GB

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Imp
Best idea now is like others said, get 1 stick of 1 Gb Ram. More than adequate for today's stuff, and leave plenty of open slots to expand upon when necessary.

But then you dont have dual channel bandwidth, which does hurt real world performance.

i have been curious about how the c2d systems react to sc vs dc memory configs - do yo have any benches?

 

[acegazda]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Imp
Best idea now is like others said, get 1 stick of 1 Gb Ram. More than adequate for today's stuff, and leave plenty of open slots to expand upon when necessary.

But then you dont have dual channel bandwidth, which does hurt real world performance.

i have been curious about how the c2d systems react to sc vs dc memory configs - do yo have any benches?

you can always add a stcik later, this way you can have dual channel 2gb instead of 4x512mb or 2x512mb and 1x1gb.

 

[khenderson]

Man, now I'm even confused by the basic terms. One says "Desktop" memory and the other is "System". Is there a difference? I must be missing something obvious.

G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Desktop Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231059
$120

G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) System Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231085
$120

I undersand that the FSB multiplier can be different for CPU and SYS MEM, but if FSB is NOT syncronous then isn't that a significant performance hit all by itself?

 

[imported_Imp]

True. However, you may eventually get stuck in a situation where you'll have to dump your current 2 sticks because there's a compatibility problem (old A64 4 stick DDR333) or you just run out of room (4x 256 anyone?). It is a longshot that you'll need more than 2Gb soon, but I doubt many people want 4x512 sticks nowadays. Also, if you ever upgrade again, 1Gb sticks are a lot more 'futureproof' in terms of expandability.

 

[khenderson]

>Neither of those is really important, crap ddr2 533 at horrible timings is only about 10% >slower than the most expensive stuff you can buy on Core2, even less on AMD.

>Youre much better off spending the extra money elsewhere, like the video card.

Well, that's the hypothesis I started the post with. The question is what kind of memory should I be settling for? Crap dd2 533 with low horrible timings might be a little too much of a roll back...

 

[acegazda]

Originally posted by: Imp
True. However, you may eventually get stuck in a situation where you'll have to dump your current 2 sticks because there's a compatibility problem (old A64 4 stick DDR333) or you just run out of room (4x 256 anyone?). It is a longshot that you'll need more than 2Gb soon, but I doubt many people want 4x512 sticks nowadays. Also, if you ever upgrade again, 1Gb sticks are a lot more 'futureproof' in terms of expandability.

Here's the ddr2-667 I was talking about... you save $10 so I guess it's your choice. Good find with the ddr2-800.