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How Much RAM is enough? 8GB?

M

marcplante

Senior member
I'm a general computer user who does the following things.

general srufing
Occasional gaming, including
GTR2 (driving SIM)
COD WAW2
I anticipate BF3 in my future After I buy a new graphics card.

I do occasional large file transfers

I had 4 G of memory (in my sig) and just added 8 G of faster memory. I now have 12 G of memory. The faster memory is restricted by my BUS spd (1333 Mhz) and the slower memory is running at 1066 Mhz. (something like that. I'm not that technical actually).

Is 8 G enough if I'm not multitasking? Do I just leave in the extra 4 G of "old" RAM. My thinking is the response speed isn't material and that I benefit more from capacity than throughput. i haven't found a contemporary article that covers this well. There was a Toms hardware piece from 2005 that talked about going from 512kMb - 2G. It focused on multitasking and file transfers as well as some stability of FPS on certain games.

thanks,

Marc



thoughts?
 
8 is probably enough, but I went to 16 because RAM has never been (nor likely will be) cheaper, and I occasionally run apps that are RAM hungry and run better when they are well fed (Photoshop, Lightroom). If there is any chance that in the near future you may do video, audio, or image editing, you may as well spring for 16GB now. The way I look at it is, RAM is the one aspect of my system I don't need to think about for a long time now.
 
I went up from 6 to 12 and it's helped quite a lot. I use my PC for both work and play though. I can see myself gong up to 24 by Christmas. As jhansman said; it is dirt cheap 🙂
 
marcplante said:
I now have 12 G of memory. The faster memory is restricted by my BUS spd (1333 Mhz) and the slower memory is running at 1066 Mhz. (something like that. I'm not that technical actually).


thoughts?
Click to expand...
Your BIOS doesn't report your cluster of memory running at two different speeds, does it?
 
8Gig is probably the sweet spot for memory right now for 95% of users. Unless you have a specific reason to get more (and know the software you use will take advandtage of it), don't get more then 8Gig.

2x4Gig kits are really cheap, and give the chance to go to 4x4gb (16gig) in the future is the need arises.

Most apps are still 32-bit, and can't use more then 4gig anyway. So if you are only gaming, 4Gig for the game/app (worst case estimate here), 2Gig for Windows itself, still gives you 2Gig RAM free.


Now if you run multiple 32-bit apps, or 64-bit apps that use the RAM, then going higher is worth it. Like running multiple VM's at once, you assign each VM 3-4Gig of RAM so they don't slow down. Or running a video/photo editing software that is 64-bit, and can use more then 4Gig of RAM.

But for "regular" usages, like gaming, office stuff, internet, 8Gig is fine.
 
wow, what do you guys run? i got 6 gigs and i never seen it use more than 3 gigs. The main reason i wont buy more is cause i figure by the time i actually need more, there will be DDR4 or something out by then.
of course i don't really multitask either, i use 1 app/game at a time and exit it when i'm done.
but i'm now curious to know what one would be doing wanting to run 3 VM's n such
 
Not in the bios. I'm just mixing memory sticks of different speeds and assuming that the system is stepping down to the slowest speed for all 12 G. So the tradeoff to me is 8 G @ 1333 or 12 G @ 1066.

I'll need to watch the system resource to see if I even max out that 8 G

Marc
 
System_Mechanic said:
wow, what do you guys run? i got 6 gigs and i never seen it use more than 3 gigs. The main reason i wont buy more is cause i figure by the time i actually need more, there will be DDR4 or something out by then.
of course i don't really multitask either, i use 1 app/game at a time and exit it when i'm done.
but i'm now curious to know what one would be doing wanting to run 3 VM's n such
Click to expand...
"Don't really multitask" 😵

You mean to tell me you don't transcode HD video, have dozens of IE & Firefox tabs open, working on Folding@home and SETI in virtual machines while playing three FPS games all at the same time?
🙄
 
Enough ram is when you think you have enough or you are maxed out. With current pricing; you can't have too much. I personally would get as much as your willing to buy. If you have the money and see a deal; go for it.

I do not do much on my systems either; mostly distributed computing and surfing and I can easily use up 8gb or more
 
System_Mechanic said:
wow, what do you guys run? i got 6 gigs and i never seen it use more than 3 gigs. The main reason i wont buy more is cause i figure by the time i actually need more, there will be DDR4 or something out by then.
of course i don't really multitask either, i use 1 app/game at a time and exit it when i'm done.
but i'm now curious to know what one would be doing wanting to run 3 VM's n such
Click to expand...

DDR4 won't be out that quickly.... if so, you could still sell off your DDR3 RAM(or hold on until DDR3 stops being produced, and sell it at an extreme profit)

i run 3 VMs... security/isolation/testing purposes

and of course having a 4GB ram drive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_disk .... usually Windows caches stuff from applications for you, but with the ram disk, you can control more
 
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