How much Ram should I put into my system?

Civic2oo1x

Senior member
Jan 29, 2002
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I plan on upgradig to the Abit KR7A133 Raid motherboard sometime next week and a XP1900. I also plan on using XP Pro as well. I plan on using it mostly for internet/word processing/MP3's, but I will also be playing some games (Sims, Freedom Force) and a few FPS. My question is how much Ram should I add? A 256 is around $80 and the 512 is $150. Those are prices for PC2100 ram. CLS=2.5. Will I be ok with the 256? Thanks.
 

sohcrates

Diamond Member
Sep 19, 2000
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woops, shoulda read better. :)

you'll be fine to start with 256 , if money is tight

there's really not too many substantial differences, especially with gaming, between 256 and 512

really only noticeable with intense photoshop and stuff like that
 

Maezr

Senior member
Jan 20, 2002
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Yeah, it's overkill.

I've got 512 megs DDR and it almost NEVER uses more than 300-400...
 

CubicZirconia

Diamond Member
Nov 24, 2001
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I'd just get 256 mb right now and possibly buy some more when prices come down again. The difference between 256 and 512 really isn't that noticable.
 

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
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Originally posted by: Pilsnerpete
so how much ram for a serious photoshop session? is a gig overkill?

For serious Photoshop? No, it's not.

I had 512, and I was hitting the swap a whole bunch editing 1920x1440 images. Start using filters and such, yeah, it'll use memory.

I have 768 now.
 

Civic2oo1x

Senior member
Jan 29, 2002
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It's not that money is tight, it's just that I don't see the need to buy something I don't really need right now. :) Especially when that extra money can go into the next step up of video cards, instead of opting for the Ti4400.
 

cool

Senior member
Jun 17, 2000
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Gaming system
1.4 ghz T-Bird AYHJA 266FSB
1024 MB PC133 SDRAM
(2)40 GB IBM Deskstar 60GXP in Raid 0
Ati Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO
16x Pioneer DVD116
24x/10x/40x Lite-on CD-RW
Lian-Li PC10
Sony G400 19"


You have right now 1 Gig RAM in your system and asking here how much RAM's enough?!
 

spyordie007

Diamond Member
May 28, 2001
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Originally posted by: Pilsnerpete
so how much ram for a serious photoshop session? is a gig overkill?
No, not if you are working with big images in Photoshop, is it overkill if you do little things for the web? Yes
Is it overkill if you are doing full size images going to press? Not at all...

Photoshop will use up to 1 GB of memory by itself (if the memory is available) so a system with 1280 MB of RAM would not be considered overkill if all you wanted to do was run Photoshop by itself and work with large images.

-Spy
 

spyordie007

Diamond Member
May 28, 2001
6,229
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Originally posted by: Pilsnerpete
so how much ram for a serious photoshop session? is a gig overkill?
FYI, I forget the exact figure but if I remember correctly a good rule of thumb to follow is take the size of your PSD file and multiply by 3 and that is roughly how much RAM a specific image would take, more if you have text or effect layers, a little less if you have a single layer and it's simple.

I've talked to several people who work with PSD files that are 700+MB and they complain that "Photoshop should be able to use more memory than just a Gig...)

-Spy
 

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
34,149
1,306
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Originally posted by: spyordie007


"Photoshop should be able to use more memory than just a Gig...)

-Spy

Wait, so Photoshop can only use 1 Gigabyte of memory, or is this sarcasm? :p

 

spyordie007

Diamond Member
May 28, 2001
6,229
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Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Wait, so Photoshop can only use 1 Gigabyte of memory...
I'm fairly certain the figure I read several months ago in an Adobe doc. was that it can activly use 1 GB of Physical RAM plus up to 2 GB of scratch disk space on up to 4 volumes (partitions or physical drives).

-Spy