RAM myths

[SZLiao214]

My notebook has only 512 megs of ram and i used to game on it. The computer seemed to run most of the games i played well enough as i kept it very clean.

The move from 512 to a gig was pretty noticeable. A friend of mine who has 2 gigs of ram in his computer but has similar stats to my desktop cant tell the difference between the 2.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: puffff
i never have memory issues. i have a one track mind, so i'm never multitasking.

We are all one-tracked.


Some of us just like to push ourselves and pretend

 

[Goosemaster]

BTW OP, try saying that on an Mac running OS9..


damn those things were awful.

 

[Special K]

I noticed that IE7 consumes a ton of memory compared to IE6. I routinely see it consume 500MB+ of memory. I typically have 10 or so tabs open at a time. Upgrading to 2 GB from 1 GB made a noticeable difference.

 

[Steve]

I have 1GB in my main PC, and 2GB OCZ Platinum in my HTPC. I got the latter used for $115. As long as RAM is cheap enough, no reason not to get it.

 

[Pacfanweb]

I saw a HUGE difference on my machine running XP going from 256-512. Just a little difference going from 512-768, and none when going to 1 gig.
This is just opening windows, surfing, etc. Not gaming.

 

[SoLiDus88]

running vmware on my comp. I have a gig of ram. thinking of bumping it up to 2gigs. otherwise a gig is fine when im not running vmware.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: archcommus
This is really nothing technical so I think it should be okay for OT.

For those of you that say less than 512 MB of memory is too little for XP, totally wrong.

Right now I'm on a system with XP SP2, an Athlon XP 2100+ CPU, a 10 GB HDD, and 256 MB of PC-2100 DDR memory. I'm currently running:

two remote desktop sessions
Winamp
AIM
two IE7 windows
VPN connection
Outlook 2003
WinFast Wizard
Kaspersky 6
Ultramon

And it's running perfectly smooth and fine, takes maybe 3 seconds to open a new significant window.

FYI...

Let's see you play Battlefield 2.

On my Laptop which is a Dothan 1.8 GHz + 512mb, I have:
- MS Word 2007
- 3 explorer windows
- 20 AIM windows
- 7 FF windows
- Excel
- PeerGuardian
- Kaspersky

It's ok. It's slow though.

On my workstation which is an Opteron 170 and 2gb, I have roughly the same with Windows Media 11 running and it's LIGHTNING fast.

Use a 2gb system and you will learn my friend.

Even my mom's laptop with 1gb ram feels infinitely many times better than my laptop.

There's a huge difference going from 512mb to 1gb. I made the jump from 1gb to 2gb last year and despite latency increases due to 2x1gb sticks being not able to do 2-2-2-5, I still saw huge boosts.

I love opening Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro while watching HDTV and listening to my music. I can switch back and forth without any lag. I also love DVD ripping and playing Warcraft 3 at the same time. Let's see your system handle any of that.

There's a reason all I do on my laptop is browse, email and word process and music when I'm not at home. That's why I have a desktop..

 

[imported_MadHatter]

I'm afraid I must disagree that 256 being enough (granted your system is using DDR RAM). My old development machine at work was a P3 933 with 256 MB PC-133 of RAM (this was just 6 months ago). It took 20 minutes for it to boot and setup the security policy. Launching outlook took 2-3 minutes. Opening Visual Studio took 2-3 minutes. Then try to open IE to search google...I was done. I was a lucky one. The girl next to me had 128 MB...So many times she got the white screen of death (opening a window and the system was so bogged down it couldn't even draw the window) and it wouldn't respond for 10-15 minutes. I'm riding high with 1 GB and a P4 now.

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: MadHatter
I'm afraid I must disagree that 256 being enough (granted your system is using DDR RAM). My old development machine at work was a P3 933 with 256 MB PC-133 of RAM (this was just 6 months ago). It took 20 minutes for it to boot and setup the security policy. Launching outlook took 2-3 minutes. Opening Visual Studio took 2-3 minutes. Then try to open IE to search google...I was done. I was a lucky one. The girl next to me had 128 MB...So many times she got the white screen of death (opening a window and the system was so bogged down it couldn't even draw the window) and it wouldn't respond for 10-15 minutes. I'm riding high with 1 GB and a P4 now.

One company I've done work for was so deep in money troubles they couldn't add memory into the computers. I watched someone have to wait a half-hour to open up a cad project on a Win2k machine, 128mb ram. As the project was opening, I was watching the page file usage steadily increase to 2gb!

But getting back to the original memory issues - for a $300-$400-$500 computer, adding $20 of additional memory to increase the speed and the enjoyability, it's an absolute no-brainer that everyone should have minimum 512mb ram. You're never going to find any other upgrade so cheap with such an impact on the system's performance.

 

[Tuktuk]

My main problem now is my laptop has 2x256 RAM, so to upgrade I'd have to throw out the two sticks I'm using and spend $110-$120. In comparison 1 gb flash drives are $15. Am I stupid not to invest in a flash drive for readyboost? How effective is it?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
My main problem now is my laptop has 2x256 RAM, so to upgrade I'd have to throw out the two sticks I'm using and spend $110-$120. In comparison 1 gb flash drives are $15. Am I stupid not to invest in a flash drive for readyboost? How effective is it?

Why? You could just install one new stick. Dual-channel doesn't add much in a laptop since the bandwidth of a single stick already matches the FSB speed, so having it in dual-channel doesn't add performance like it would in a desktop.

 

[Tuktuk]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
My main problem now is my laptop has 2x256 RAM, so to upgrade I'd have to throw out the two sticks I'm using and spend $110-$120. In comparison 1 gb flash drives are $15. Am I stupid not to invest in a flash drive for readyboost? How effective is it?

Why? You could just install one new stick. Dual-channel doesn't add much in a laptop since the bandwidth of a single stick already matches the FSB speed, so having it in dual-channel doesn't add performance like it would in a desktop.

This will sound really stupid.. but by dual channel do you mean having an even amount of RAM? Like I'd always thought it was bad to have those inbetween numbers, but you're saying with a laptop that doesn't matter? I could go 256mb+1gb?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Tuktuk

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
My main problem now is my laptop has 2x256 RAM, so to upgrade I'd have to throw out the two sticks I'm using and spend $110-$120. In comparison 1 gb flash drives are $15. Am I stupid not to invest in a flash drive for readyboost? How effective is it?

Why? You could just install one new stick. Dual-channel doesn't add much in a laptop since the bandwidth of a single stick already matches the FSB speed, so having it in dual-channel doesn't add performance like it would in a desktop.

This will sound really stupid.. but by dual channel do you mean having an even amount of RAM? Like I'd always thought it was bad to have those inbetween numbers, but you're saying with a laptop that doesn't matter? I could go 256mb+1gb?

Dual-channel means installing the RAM in equal pairs because it allows for extra bandwidth. But in laptops, the bandwidth isn't that high because of the lower FSB speed, so running 256MB + 1GB would be just as good as 2x512MB.

 

[Minerva]

It really depends on what you do with your PC.

If you have a trim system you can certainly get away with less memory. But more is always better.

 

[Shawn]

lol, whatever you do don't install vista. It uses over 512MB just to boot up.

 

[0roo0roo]

toss in anything like image editing, more tabs in firefox or itunes and it'll turn from slightly usable to completely sh*t horrible. in todays world of cheap ram theres no reason to live with that little ram plus some of us run much more stuff

and well i have an old laptop with only 256mb, and its sh*t with xp. it'll run single tasks ok, but it hits the harddrive way too much if you run multiple things at the same time.

 

[Minerva]

Originally posted by: Shawn
lol, whatever you do don't install vista. It uses over 512MB just to boot up.

Yes but unused ram is wasted ram.

 

[archcommus]

It's amusing how so many people read the OP and then completely skew the general idea into something their own mind created, like suggesting I try playing a game and then seeing how my opinion changes. NO SH1T a game wouldn't run that well. The point was only that many people out there incorrectly claim your system will run terribly even for very basic tasks with anything less than 512, and I was showing that is very untrue.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

This is not a myth, using XP with 256MB or less is not an enjoyable experience for the average user that has used a better system.

 

[Nocturnal]

I'm sorry but doing those types of activities with just 256MB of RAM is extremely painful. Maybe you're just used to that kind of sluggishness.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Nocturnal
I'm sorry but doing those types of activities with just 256MB of RAM is extremely painful. Maybe you're just used to that kind of sluggishness.

I'm not, my main system is an A64 3200+ with a gig of RAM. It is plenty snappy for my needs. When I am home for a weekend I use this system and this is what I do on it, and it's really not all that slow. The only time you wait at all is when you open a new IE window or something like that. Once everything's up and going (TV, IE windows, RDC sessions, etc.), it's all plenty usable.