Opinions on bumping RAM

[jhansman]

I can bump my current system to 8GB of RAM for about $50, and it seems too cheap not to. It seems a prudent thing to do looking forward, but I wanted to solicit some opinion on it. Do many of you run 8GB or more in your rigs, or is this just overkill? I should add I do some Photoshop editing, but nothing more rigorous than that. TIA.

 

[Blain]

What OS are you running?

 

[jhansman]

Sorry for not including that. 64-bit Vista, 64-bit Win7 in Oct.

 

[alcoholbob]

I've heard you can easily hit 7GB RAM used with Photoshop alone.

 

[jhansman]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
I've heard you can easily hit 7GB RAM used with Photoshop alone.

I believe that. It seems like one of those apps that will suck up every megabyte available and then some.

 

[jkresh]

guess the best thing to do is open your taskmanager when photoshop is open, see how much ram is being used (and how much virtual memory), Unless you have a heavy overclock which might be effected by adding more memory it is unlikely to hurt and ddr2 prices are likely to rise rather then fall (as supply dwindles because all manufacturers move to ddr3) so I would say its worth the $50.

I had 4 and went to 8, then moved ot i7 and started with 6, noticed some improvement from 4 to 8, I have occasionally noticed issues with my system with 6 (but I only when using very memory intensive applications), strongly considering going to 12, but hoping 4gig ddr3 sticks will drop in price so I can just go to 18 and not worry about ram for a while.

 

[jhansman]

I went ahead and ordered it; nothing to lose, and this time next year (or sooner) 8GB will probably seem like the minimum. I remember years back when I upped my 80386 to 8MB and a coworker laughed and said "You'll never use that much memory." Famous last words....

 

[elconejito]

I don't think there is such a thing as "too much RAM".

To see if you "need" the RAM though, with Photoshop open check your scratch size. If you don't know where it is (no insult intended, I am always surprised how many PS users don't know of this function) with a file open in the lower left corner next to the zoom level is the little triangle flyout. From the flyout choose the option "Scratch Sizes". The number on the left is how much RAM you are currently using, the number on the right is the amount of RAM Photoshop has available. You'll note that the scratch size is completely unrelated to the filesize in explorer. It's keeping not only the image data (of all images open), but your history, cache, etc. And if you have a many-layered image it can pile up REAL quick.

As long as the number on the left is smaller than the number on the right, you are good to go. But as soon as that left number gets bigger than the right, that means PS is writing to the hard drive. And THAT is super-duper-sloooooow.

 

[ilkhan]

My 8GB rarely gets above 50% used, but it does work really well. Hope you are happy with the purchase.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: elconejito
I don't think there is such a thing as "too much RAM".

At some point is ceases to be of value, affects hibernation speed related drive space, and more RAM sticks = more chance of one being bad.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: jhansman
I can bump my current system to 8GB of RAM for about $50, and it seems too cheap not to. It seems a prudent thing to do looking forward, but I wanted to solicit some opinion on it. Do many of you run 8GB or more in your rigs, or is this just overkill? I should add I do some Photoshop editing, but nothing more rigorous than that. TIA.

do it
I did and I have no regrets