Is 64-bit Vista and 4GB of RAM worth it for gaming

[Silent Thunder]

Here are some prices
2GB 8500 Corsair C5D RAM - $89 and Vista Basic 32 bit - $145
Totals: $234
vs
4GB 8500 Corsair C5D RAM - $178 and Vista PRemium 64 bit- $169
Totals $347
(All in Aus Dollars)

System will be for gaming with e8400, DS3 and 4870 512MB

Do you think 4GB RAM is worth it for gaming for another $100 and why?
Any unbiased memory 2gb vs 4gb links to tests would be appreciated.
Cheers

 

[Denithor]

Ouch, prices suck down under.

Legitreviews: 2GB vs 4GB Vista64 gaming performance comparison

Our average framerate increase of 1.6% in nine games was slightly higher than the 1.1% shown by Corsair in the three games they tested, but our test system was a little newer and we were running Vista SP1. Something else that we noted while running the benchmarks is that game loading times were also significantly enhanced by installing 4GB of system memory. While that was not the focus of this article (framerates was) we noted that Crysis v1.21 loaded 54.1% faster (14.28s versus 22.00s) on the initial level load. After the level was loaded and then restarted (as if one died and started over) the load times were within a hundredth of a second. Obviously, having more memory will also help other areas and at the end of the day it helps performance. If you're going to be building a new gaming PC then by all means use 4GB as it does help performance, but don't expect a night and day difference in the gaming benchmarks.

Crysis saw an improvement in fps of nearly 8% going from 2GB to 4GB memory. Based on that alone I think it's safe to say that games going forward will take more and more advantage of more available memory. And as they mentioned, Vista itself runs better and smoother with more memory.

Even if you don't get the extra memory the additional $24 for Vista Home Premium 64 is well worth it. Basic is so stripped down it's not even funny.

 

[Silent Thunder]

Thats exactly what I was looking for Denithor. Thanks a lot. I think I'll shop around a bit more and go for the 4GB and 64-bit premium.
Thanks again.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Why DDR2-1066? That's much more expensive than DDR2-800 or DDR2-1000.

 

[faxon]

overclocking probably, doesnt want to push his ram to hard when the prices on memory are pretty low already.

 

[Silent Thunder]

yeah going 1066mhz for OC'ing an E8400
from the results of other e8400 I don't think I'd be able to safely OC 800mhz to match e8400 speeds.

 

[disports]

Got my DDR2-800 up to DDR2-890 for 4.05 Ghz, but yeah that ram would give you more headroom.

 

[Denithor]

Just go for DDR2-1000 which can handle up to 4.5GHz on an e8400.

 

[Silent Thunder]

It's so frustrating, I wish I could easily get my hands on DDR2-1000, but most outlets i Australie just go from 800 to 1066, and 1066 is significantly more expensive, so might setlle for 800mhz quality RAM and just OC it a bit with my E8400, though would like to get the magical 4ghz stable

 

[CrystalBay]

Get The 4 GB's but get low latency ddr2 800 , not that you will notice the difference.

 

[Denithor]

Just get quality DDR2-800 memory from the better makers (Crucial, Mushkin, G.Skill) and it should overclock to DDR2-900 speeds with a little extra voltage. Look for memory rated to run 800 @ 1.8V, the lower the CAS the better (but don't pay extra for lower CAS). Just bump the voltage slightly (1.9 or 2.0) and relax the timings and it should easily handle 450fsb.

 

[Rabbits]

64bit in many case's utilizes memory and ram a lot better then 32bit, and games tend to run faster. Only downside is 64bit doesn't have as much application support since it's harder to code.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: Rabbits
64bit in many case's utilizes memory and ram a lot better then 32bit, and games tend to run faster. Only downside is 64bit doesn't have as much application support since it's harder to code.

Wrong on both counts.

64-bit won't affect game performance because games are still 32-bit software (99% of them anyway). The only way 64-bit will affect a game is if the game needs more than 3GB useable system memory and you happen to have 4GB or more available.

And 64-bit has just as much "application support" -- 32-bit programs run in 32-bit mode without problems. The only issues are with extremely old programs, 64-bit OS don't support 16-bit programs (and some of the earliest 32-bit programs came with 16-bit installers).

 

[Yellowbeard]

In the testing I have done, the most noticable impact of 4GB vs 2GB and 6GB vs 3GB is the effect on minimum framerates. MIN framerate is MUCH more critical for a good gaming experience than the MAX framerate. 4GB+ FTW!

 

[pcslookout]

I find it amazing that everyone is hoping on the bandwagon that 4 GB is now the recommended amount to have for pc gaming. I remember a few months ago some people were saying 2 GB is enough for gaming but as I expected that this would change quite rapidly instead of very slowly like 1 GB to 2 GB recommended amount for gaming did.

Now it just makes me wonder if 4 GB to 8 GB recommended amount of ram for gaming will happen as quick ? I doubt it but if ram prices stay this low for a while it could. Once windows 7 comes out as well it may help as well. Not sure.

 

[Yellowbeard]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I find it amazing that everyone is hoping on the bandwagon that 4 GB is now the recommended amount to have for pc gaming. I remember a few months ago some people were saying 2 GB is enough for gaming but as I expected that this would change quite rapidly instead of very slowly like 1 GB to 2 GB recommended amount for gaming did.

On my current test system, I have seen the the system using 3.81GB running only Warhammer Online (no A/V, no VoIP, etc) . So, in the near future I think think 4GB will become the new minimum standard.

And, keep in mind that it's not really bandwagon thinking that inspired this. Until a 64bit OS became mature, the overall memory usage was not going to go up dramatically. Now that we have better memory module density, a better 64bit OS, and quad core CPUs, more games can be coded to use it all.

 

[JaBro999]

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I find it amazing that everyone is hoping on the bandwagon that 4 GB is now the recommended amount to have for pc gaming. I remember a few months ago some people were saying 2 GB is enough for gaming but as I expected that this would change quite rapidly instead of very slowly like 1 GB to 2 GB recommended amount for gaming did.

The amazingly low price of DDR2 has taken 4GB from an expensive luxury to a standard feature of most new builds. When I paid $200 for two 1GB DDR modules just a few years back, I barely justified the expense as extending the life of the system. At least with DDR2 now, it's almost a no-brainer.

 

[pcslookout]

So do you all expect 8 GB to overtake the standard anytime soon if ram prices stay this low or get any cheaper? Is anything holding this back?

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Yellowbeard

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I find it amazing that everyone is hoping on the bandwagon that 4 GB is now the recommended amount to have for pc gaming. I remember a few months ago some people were saying 2 GB is enough for gaming but as I expected that this would change quite rapidly instead of very slowly like 1 GB to 2 GB recommended amount for gaming did.

On my current test system, I have seen the the system using 3.81GB running only Warhammer Online (no A/V, no VoIP, etc) . So, in the near future I think think 4GB will become the new minimum standard.

And, keep in mind that it's not really bandwagon thinking that inspired this. Until a 64bit OS became mature, the overall memory usage was not going to go up dramatically. Now that we have better memory module density, a better 64bit OS, and quad core CPUs, more games can be coded to use it all.

Wow was this in Vista 64 bit?

 

[Yellowbeard]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Yellowbeard

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I find it amazing that everyone is hoping on the bandwagon that 4 GB is now the recommended amount to have for pc gaming. I remember a few months ago some people were saying 2 GB is enough for gaming but as I expected that this would change quite rapidly instead of very slowly like 1 GB to 2 GB recommended amount for gaming did.

On my current test system, I have seen the the system using 3.81GB running only Warhammer Online (no A/V, no VoIP, etc) . So, in the near future I think think 4GB will become the new minimum standard.

And, keep in mind that it's not really bandwagon thinking that inspired this. Until a 64bit OS became mature, the overall memory usage was not going to go up dramatically. Now that we have better memory module density, a better 64bit OS, and quad core CPUs, more games can be coded to use it all.

Wow was this in Vista 64 bit?

Yes, Vista 64bit with 6GB of TR3X6G1600C8D:
http://www.corsair.com/_datasheets/TR3X6G1600C8D.pdf

 

[nyker96]

looks like crysis gets a boost with more RAM!

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

If RAM prices fall, why not? It's not like any of us know restraint.;P

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: Yellowbeard

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: Yellowbeard

Originally posted by: pcslookout
I find it amazing that everyone is hoping on the bandwagon that 4 GB is now the recommended amount to have for pc gaming. I remember a few months ago some people were saying 2 GB is enough for gaming but as I expected that this would change quite rapidly instead of very slowly like 1 GB to 2 GB recommended amount for gaming did.

On my current test system, I have seen the the system using 3.81GB running only Warhammer Online (no A/V, no VoIP, etc) . So, in the near future I think think 4GB will become the new minimum standard.

And, keep in mind that it's not really bandwagon thinking that inspired this. Until a 64bit OS became mature, the overall memory usage was not going to go up dramatically. Now that we have better memory module density, a better 64bit OS, and quad core CPUs, more games can be coded to use it all.

Wow was this in Vista 64 bit?

Yes, Vista 64bit with 6GB of TR3X6G1600C8D:
http://www.corsair.com/_datasheets/TR3X6G1600C8D.pdf

Wow I didn't realize Warhammer Online was so memory demanding.

 

[pcslookout]

I think these are the minimum system requirements wow!

PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

For Windows XP

· 2.5 GHz P4 (single core) processor or equivalent
· 1 Gigabyte RAM
· A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
· At least 15 GB of hard drive space

For Windows VISTA

· 2.5 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
· 2 Gigabyte RAM
· A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
· At least 15 GB of hard drive space

Supported Video Cards

ATI Radeon(TM) series

· 9500, 9600, 9800
· X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
· X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
· 2400, 2600, 2900,
· 3650, 3850, 3870
· 4850, 4870

NVIDIA GeForce series

· FX 5900, FX 5950
· 6600, 6800,
· 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
· 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
· 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
· GTX 260, GTX 280

Intel(R) Extreme Graphics

· GMA X4500




First time I ever seen 1 GB and 2 GB for minimum system requirements. It was a little difficult even finding what kind of requirements that game needed at first though but finally found them.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Denithor
Ouch, prices suck down under.

Legitreviews: 2GB vs 4GB Vista64 gaming performance comparison

Our average framerate increase of 1.6% in nine games was slightly higher than the 1.1% shown by Corsair in the three games they tested, but our test system was a little newer and we were running Vista SP1. Something else that we noted while running the benchmarks is that game loading times were also significantly enhanced by installing 4GB of system memory. While that was not the focus of this article (framerates was) we noted that Crysis v1.21 loaded 54.1% faster (14.28s versus 22.00s) on the initial level load. After the level was loaded and then restarted (as if one died and started over) the load times were within a hundredth of a second. Obviously, having more memory will also help other areas and at the end of the day it helps performance. If you're going to be building a new gaming PC then by all means use 4GB as it does help performance, but don't expect a night and day difference in the gaming benchmarks.

Crysis saw an improvement in fps of nearly 8% going from 2GB to 4GB memory. Based on that alone I think it's safe to say that games going forward will take more and more advantage of more available memory. And as they mentioned, Vista itself runs better and smoother with more memory.

Even if you don't get the extra memory the additional $24 for Vista Home Premium 64 is well worth it. Basic is so stripped down it's not even funny.

i ran my own benchmarks and they showed significant improvements. So I really don't know what those guys are talking about.
Most likely a normal user's background tasks make the extra ram useful.

Wrong on both counts.

64-bit won't affect game performance because games are still 32-bit software (99% of them anyway). The only way 64-bit will affect a game is if the game needs more than 3GB useable system memory and you happen to have 4GB or more available.