RAM amount dilema..

[FishTankX]

Hmm.. here's my current system, for starters.

Williamette 1.7 soon to be upgraded to a 2.4GHZ Northwood
Radeon 8500 Retail/LE (A retail running at 250/250. )
P4T-E (Soon to be running 133X3 if I can't find a 100/400MHZ FSB processor around here...)
256MB RDRAM PC800
The rest is relativley unimportant, but i'd really like to upgrade my RAM. I'm feeling the limits of 256 megs, as when I browse the web and chat I regularly hit a commit charge of 300MB in XP. (It's at 306M right now with Netants, windows messenger, norton, creative stuff, Kazaa, and 7 explorer windows) and this machine is just starting to feel sluggish in general. So i've decided to use my last 2 precious slots for a RAM ugprade. My question is this.

In my current dilema (Medium gamer/heavy user) would it be wiser to go with 512MB (Extra 128X2) and get enough for the near future, or play it safe and get 768 megs (An extra 256X2)?? I don't plan on upgrading anything other than the processor anytime soon, as i'm poor. This will probably be the last RAM upgrade I have on this machine. Which would you suggest?

By the way, another question, just while i'm at it. Recently SVC host (network service) and LSASS have been writing huge volumes of data. Like, to the tune of 10GB a day, if I keep my system on all day. Is that something I should be worried about?

 

[Stark]

Get 256 (512 total). An upgrade is in order, but I wouldn't invest any more than that in RDRAM... memory you will never be able to use in the future.

 

[dullard]

I think 512 MB total would be plenty for now. Maybe in two years you might feel the need for more, but you can always buy more RDRAM then if that happens. Since you are poor, that is what I'd do. I just bought a computer myself and only got 384 MB.

"I wouldn't invest any more than that in RDRAM... memory you will never be able to use in the future"
I read that same argument a year ago with people trying to convice some users to switch to 200 MHz DDR. Sure DDR is doing great, but who'd want to castrate a computer now with PC1600? Especially since dual channel DDR is just around the corner. The fact is that FishTankX will likely use this RDRAM for 2-3 years minimum. That is a good investment. By then anything bought now will be out of date and useless for newer computers.

Plus who knows what we will use in the future? Intel might not make another RDRAM chipset for the P4, but that doesn't say anything about any other chipset for any newer Intel chip. AMD has a license agreement for RDRAM as well. Maybe AMD will switch. We just don't know. So any statement that RDRAM is dead and useless is an uninformed statement.

 

[Lonyo]

In the future couldn't you just use the RDram in a second rig that was a proxy or something? That way even when it goes out of date, it will still be useful.

 

[alkemyst]

512MB is the sweet spot

 

[Ilmater]

I've seen banchmarks that compare 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024. From what I've seen, 512 was the best. In fact, in the review I last saw, 1GB actually slowed things down in some apps. Not significantly, but that just goes to show you that there isn't much to be gained between 512MB and 1024MB. Save the money and go with 128 x 2.

 

[microAmp]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
I've seen banchmarks that compare 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1024. From what I've seen, 512 was the best. In fact, in the review I last saw, 1GB actually slowed things down in some apps. Not significantly, but that just goes to show you that there isn't much to be gained between 512MB and 1024MB. Save the money and go with 128 x 2.

Though that is true, I've seen a few games that like 512 MB over 256 MB. I've tested it myself by pulling a stick out and testing both ways.

 

[Pink0]

512MB is the sweet spot

I disagree. It depends entirely on what the system is used for. To me 512MB is pathetically small. If you're just surfing and checking email and word processing you'll be just fine and dandy with 256MB. If you're a gamer you'll notice a speed increase going to 512MB especially in load times. This is noticable even in older games like american mcgee's alice. For people like me who use their computer as more than an internet applicance and really buggy gaming platform we need at least 1gb. Using my high quality scanner, I scan in images which are 300-400megs in size. Opening these 300-400meg bitmaps in photoshop takes over 900 megs of ram. I've done it on a system with 512megs of ram and there was a horrible, horrible ammount of waiting involved. Even once the image was filtered and set to jpg high, despite the file size being just over 100megs only when opened (uncompressed) it still takes over 900 megs. That's just one file. Imaging having three of them open at the same time and sending pieces of them to the clipboard. How much would you need for that 3Gigs of ram? 4 gigs? What about video editing? Some people use their systems as things other than toys. In this case, you need all the ram you can get. Don't stop till your board is maxed out if you're going to be doing any of this.

 

[Bovinicus]

An upgrade is in order, but I wouldn't invest any more than that in RDRAM... memory you will never be able to use in the future.

That is just not true. Memory requirement are ALWAYS increasing. I'm sure there were people who said no one would ever need more than 512K of memory. With hardware advances there will always be software to take advantage of it. I'm not suggesting you upgrade to 768MB, as 512MB should last you for a while. However, if you don't plan on upgrading at all for the next 2-3 years, then perhaps 768MB is a wise choice. It was only around a year ago that people thought 256MB was the sweet spot. Another thing you should do is tweak. You would be surprised how much memory you can free up with some good old fashioned tweaking. 306MB of memory with those items opens sound like too much to me. I have 6 explorer windows, gamespy, word, excel, nero, kazaa, norton system monitor, ICQ, winamp, mouse/audio apps all open and am barely cracking 200MB in Windows 2000. You shouldn't be surpassing my number by 100MB. Go onto google and search for Windows XP tweaks. Do some extensive research on the subject. You would be surprised how much memory you can save by disabling various services and tools that you don't use. If you can get the average memory usage you have down quite a bit with tweak, then you should be fine with 512MB. Otherwise, 768MB might actually be worth it to you.

 

[Stark]

Please.

The way things are with upgrade cycles these days, new mobo=new cpu and memory. PC100/133 lasted a while but Rambus and all the different flavors of DDR make memory obsolete within months of purchase. If he doesn't need more than 512MB on his current system, he's not going to need more than that before his next major upgrade. He's going from a 1.7 to a 2.4, so he likes to upgrade. It's not like he just retired his BH6.

 

[glugglug]

svchost makes network connections for IIS web, ftp, smtp, etc. services, as well as DNS and other common services, since Win2K SP3. (One of serveral good reasons NOT to "upgrade" to SP3 if you use personal firewall software to block some of these services).

depending on what servers you are running, it might not mean anything for it to be writing so much.

If you aren't aware of any services you are running and its writing that much I would be concerned because it means you have probably been hacked.

LSASS also shouln't be writing that much unless you have an EXTREMELY popular server that does NT authentication or a busy domain controller.

 

[FishTankX]

Heh, thanks all. I'm heavily learning towards 768MB, but i'm gonna do some research on tweaking (Thanks Bovinincus) and see if I can get this guy down i nmemory utilizaiton. But i'd like to compare some stuff with you guys, so I can know if anything unusual is going on. Maybe a virus??

Iexplorer-24 megs, 2 windows open. :Q
AIM-16 megs 1 IM open. :Q
Explorer is taking up 17 megs, i've seen it shoot up to 30 before
Kazaa is taking up 7 megs right now ,regularly takes up 14 or more during downloading
Nprotect (Norton) is eating 5 megs of memory

Are any of the above unusual??

Oh yeah, and does Norton work with SVC host for scanning? It (SVC host) seems that it seems to be reading and writing an awful lot of information (One time i've seen it write 50GB to the harddrive over a week. :Q)

And contrary to what one person says, I do *NOT* like to upgrade. I'm getting the 2.4 mainly because I planed to, when I got this computer. The Williamette is a terrible gaming CPU, and I merely went with my 1.7 because it looked like the Palomino had limited headroom and chipsets were questionable on the Athlon side. (I was sure as hell not going with a K7S5A, i've never even fully assembled a system before, much less screwed around with OEM boards) and I was speculating (And it looks like my speculation wasn't that far off) that the Northwood would be to the Williamette what the Medocino was to the Covington. (I.E. Old celeron to new Celeron, if I got those codenames right.) And I don't plan on upgrading much if at all in the next 3 years, save a 9700 pro upgrade once it hits the 150$ price point. This is pretty much my last upgrade, for a while. And i'm wondering if 768 megs could contain the largest of games for a whlie..

 

[Pink0]

And i'm wondering if 768 megs could contain the largest of games for a whlie..

Yes. 768 will hold you for the next 3 years for general usage and games. If you're going to use your system in the ways taht I've referred to in my earlier post I wouldn't settle for any less than 1gb. 768 will be fine if you don't use you computer in that way though.

 

[Stark]

This is pretty much my last upgrade, for a while. And i'm wondering if 768 megs could contain the largest of games for a whlie..

fine, i'm wrong. Get another 512MB and be done with it. 😱

<-- has 1gb and likes it. 😉

 

[TheOriginalAndyK]

I can tell you from personal experience 1gb is preferable to 512mb even today, with 512mb after a game of UT2003 I have to wait several seconds for icons and any webpages etc to reload, with 1024mb their is no delay.

 

[amdskip]

Originally posted by: TheOriginalAndyK
I can tell you from personal experience 1gb is preferable to 512mb even today, with 512mb after a game of UT2003 I have to wait several seconds for icons and any webpages etc to reload, with 1024mb their is no delay.

Anything over 512 is overkill for any desktop and windows will NOT use it period. The only computers that need over 512 are servers.

 

[joeryu]

Originally posted by: amdskip

Originally posted by: TheOriginalAndyK
I can tell you from personal experience 1gb is preferable to 512mb even today, with 512mb after a game of UT2003 I have to wait several seconds for icons and any webpages etc to reload, with 1024mb their is no delay.

Anything over 512 is overkill for any desktop and windows will NOT use it period. The only computers that need over 512 are servers.

true for most 512mb, or weven 256 is enough...but if u do any type of photoshopping or video editing your gonna wish u had that 1gb of ram or more. i personally have 1gb of ram.

 

[Pink0]

Anything over 512 is overkill for any desktop and windows will NOT use it period. The only computers that need over 512 are servers.

Ha ha ha! What an ignorant comment! I didn't know that I had a server! That's crazy! What does it serve? It constantly goes over 900 megs of ram with photoshop and I wish I had more than 1gb. When I have multiple 400meg bitmaps open I'm paging over a gig and a half and still sending data to the clipboard. It slows to a crawl once I go over my 1gb of ram.