Is 512MB worth it?

[Platyply]

What applications would 512MB actually take advantage of? Video editing, gaming, what?

 

[BlakkIce]

progs like photoshop 3d studio anything with rendering i got a dual 800 wit 768mb of ram my rig is faster than a G4 muuhhhahaaaa

 

[AmdEmAll]

I just added 256mb to my other 256mb. Why? because it was only $56 for Crucial CL2 ram. I don't need it but I got it. It did make somethings faster in win2k.

 

[joohang]

I don't know. Is 2GB RAM worth it?

I've recently built my new obsession with creating RAMdisk to boost system performance.

 

[TunaBoo]

For me to run Miranada/outlook express/ Gamespy / CS I need like 350 ram. If I dont have that much, swapping sucks too bad. So It was worth the upgrade price for me.

 

[KpocAlypse]

I've seen no difference between 256 and 384 in my setup,(Gaming and internet use ( just started playing with IIS ) but it is pretty cheap......So, if you don't have the cash to blow, then don't get the extra, if you do have the cash to blow, then why not, its not exactly going to hurt, is it?



Now if you intend to make a server out of that old HP when time comes to get a newer system, then heck, get the RAM while its cheap...

 

[Yoyo77]

Does Mandrake and Outlook express really use that much Ram.
When I run Win2k with CS. I use about 200mb of memory. I have nothing else in the background though. I have 256mb , didnt see the point in getting more since I dont run memory intense program such as
Photoshop, video editing, etc..

Rather its worth it, it really depend on what you run and also what your next path of upgrade is. For me I'm hestiated to pick up more
sdram since I'm planning on switching to DDR the next time I build a computer.

 

[Ronstang]

Who cares what apps need what amount of memory, the stuff is so cheap just get 512MB and you will not have to worry if you have enough RAM or not.

 

[mackstann]

<< I've seen no difference between 256 and 384 in my setup,(Gaming and internet use ( just started playing with IIS ) >>



I saw no difference between 256 and 512, although I didn't do anything memory-intensive during that time. Now my g/f has the other 256(its pc100) in her pII-350 cus it only had 64, but I don't even miss the other 256. Also-I have been playing with IIS also! It's pretty damn cool, I think. My site is in my sig, and I am hosting it w/ IIS on my pc right now!

 

[IamDavid]

It helps alot in Adobe Photoshop. Going from 256 to 512 cuts rendering times by at least a quarter for me.

 

[kylef]

Yes, it's worth the $90.

Now we just need to make a nice killer app that uses all of that RAM...

 

[MallowJr]

Between 128 and 256, leaving any application/game I run leaves no hard drive stuttering/thrashing now. It's great..I like win 98 se. I hope to upgrade to DDR if that means anything though, I'll need a new mobo..but don't think it's worth it yet.

 

[Boobers]

It really doesn't matter how many programs you run at once, it's more dependant on the amount of L2 cache your processor has. I can't really remember all the details, but you need something like 1MB L2 cache to access 256MB of system RAM, or something like that.

What I mean to say is that if you have a Celeron or Duron, the extra memory would probably just be a waste. Is this still true, or does this not apply anymore?

 

[grant2]

Boobers, that was never true, less cache just means less performance.

Remember celeron-266s? 0kb cache but obviously they didn't have a 0mb memory limit =)

 

[Barrak]

I do notice a bit of a differance in Win2000 with 512MB over 256MB. It normaly comes into play when I play games like BG2 and I go from area to area, Once I go to an area the first time, and later return to it, the load times are next to nothing, when I had 256 it would pull from the swap file. Not a huge increase, but with 256MB ram costing $40- why the hell not?

 

[kylef]

Boobers: the amount of L2 cache has nothing to do with the amount of system RAM that is cacheable. That depends entirely on the cache controller. Modern processors (PIII, Athlon, P4, etc), which have onboard L2 cache controllers, have a 4 gig cacheable area I believe. The L2 cache controller on the AMD K6-3, could address &quot;only&quot; 512 MB. The cacheable area on the old Intel socket 7 boards (i430 FX, HX, TX) was only 64 MB! It is true that upgrading memory beyond the cacheable area can slow down the system because heavily used sections of code and data could end up in a non-cached page in memory. However, since the cacheable area of the newer processors is equal to the amount of memory addressable by the 32-bit x86 architecture itself, that is no longer a factor.

Plus, it DOES matter how many processes you run concurrently. If you run many apps simultaneously, adding more RAM will enable your system to avoid swapping programs in and out of memory during context switches. While this situation is mitigated by the fact that oft-used pages are not swapped to disk, some applications jump around alot in memory. If many of these applications are running, a phenomenon known as &quot;thrashing&quot; can occur where one app is swapped in, then another one, then the first one, back and forth, ad infinitum.

 

[yazz]

HX could cache up to 512MB

 

[nabeels786]

i have 512mb ram, my games work a little better when playing online.

i use photoshop and stuff too and that sped up alots

 

[Boobers]

I stand behind what I said before: If you have system memory outside the cacheable area, it will do you no good. What I ment was this is independant of how many apps you are running at once. It is a physical, mechanical property.

 

[thedarkwolf]

If you play world war II online it will make a difference. That thing uses 500+megs to run

 

[Bumboy]

RAM IS SOOO DAMN CHEAP it dont matter whether you want it or not! Do it FOR YOUR COMPUTER!!

 

[andalas]

in win2k larger memory means less usage of paging files, thus improve perfomance.
I can't explain it much detail though since I have forgotten about those paging files
and memory optimization ratio because I can get 256MB for 49 buck PC2100 DDR now

Basically you just need to look at task manager (win2k/nt only) and see your peak memory usage and it can tell you if 512 is worth it

 

[cbuchach]

Well, I just upgraded from 256 to 512 the other day. I would like to say I notice a small improvement, but am really not sure. When I play FS2000, the Win2K task manager says the system uses over 380 MB's of RAM. So, the 512 may help, especially when I load custom terrains and my memory usage goes sky high.

But in the end we are all hardware nuts and the low price on memory was too hard to resist for me.