Why so much ram?

[blackeye]

I noticed a lot of people are upgrading their ram lately.
Lots of the "gaming systems" from companies like dell, alienware, falconnw and other companies are sending out systems with 2gigs of ram for review. My friend told me today that he is upgrading from 512 to 1.5gig.
I know you dont need 2gigs and 1gig should be enough but what performance differences are there between 1 and 2 gigs?
Is there even any games out there that need 2 gigs? I doubt it.
I woudnt have thought that we would need more then 1 gig of ram untill longhorn came out in 2006.

 

[Pressure]

Having two gigs of RAM will actually slow your comp down a little bit because it's not all used. I don't know why everyone wants 2 gigs it's more than overkill.

 

[blackeye]

I dont see any point in getting 2 gigs of ram either. I still dont understand why some people are going out and buying it though. If you have all four dimm banks full it can degrade performance. So unless they got the money to shell out for 2x1024 sticks I dont see a point. And the only game that might actually use 2 gigs of ram is planetside or any other fast action MMORPG.

 

[blahblahblah]

No performance difference. If anything there maybe a slight performance decrease. However, modern games are pushing 800 MB of RAM on my system. If I want to make sure I have enough RAM for upcoming games, I need to upgrade my RAM further.

I would buy another stick of RAM right now except memory prices are still pretty high. The RAM I have in my computer is $40 more expensive than when I bought my RAM last year.

 

[blackeye]

Ram prices are all over the place. I know when I bought my ram a couple months ago I waited over a month befor it went down to a decent price.

 

[Pressure]

It'll be quite a while before you'll actually need 2 gigs of ram to run a game. As of right now it's quite pointless except to say "I've got 2 gig of RAM using 4 DIMMs and it's causing a slight performance decrease!"

 

[bosox188]

Maybe I should put my ram question in here. I have 256mb of pc2100 ram in my dell right now. My cpu only has a 400fsb so really 2100 is the highest I can go. I should be upgrading my ram soon and I know I can't afford 1GB. I'm looking around the $40 range, and I can get a good Samsung or Micron (I have a micron in my dell right now) 256mb for $40 and then I would have dual channel ram. Or should I get a cheap 512 stick for a toal of 768 ram but not have the dual channel?

 

[Asus]

I always post this link when >1GB is mentioned. Link
Thats when a system that uses Registered memory comes in handy, when more than 4 banks of RAM are used.

Recommending more RAM or Dual channel is a tough choice.
If you can buy another stick of memory later to get to 1GB and still use dual channel down the road then I would say buy 512MB now.
Dual channel sort of makes or breaks a P4 system. I would keep that if you can.

 

[blackeye]

So people should be waiting another year before getting 2 gb if its unused in games then or else you will downgrade performance.

 

[SidewinderX]

Yeah, besides, if you're getting 2 1GB sticks, they're gonna have crappy timings

 

[blackeye]

Well my friend say he found 2 gigs of ram from ocz pc 3200 for $450 one month ago and now he said the exact same ram is selling for $941. I have seen ram prices fluctuate before but that is just stupid.

 

[DarkStar]

Total newb here.

Okay, so I'm going to be upgrading my RAM and I just looked at my computer box. It says I have 512 DDR 333Mhz memory. What does this mean? What do I need to buy?

 

[Asus]

Another stick of 512MB PC2700 (333) memory from your choice of brand would be great.
CL2 would be best. CL2.5 will work but is slower.

 

[sHm0zY]

i have 768 im big pimpin

 

[blackeye]

Would you notice an improvment in game load with 2 gigs of ram over 1gig.

 

[DarkStar]

Another stick of 512MB PC2700 (333) memory from your choice of brand would be great.
CL2 would be best. CL2.5 will work but is slower.

Okay, thanks. So I just need to get the same speed then and it will work with my old RAM? Is it hard to install? What is "CL?"

 

[Asus]

Right, same speed and it should work. Double check with the manufacture for compatibility if you wish. It just slides into the slot one way and the 2 tabs snap on the sides.
CL2 is just a memory timing, the one that is refered to the most anyway.
Basicly it is how quickly the memory responds and is ready for the next step. Usually they list the timings as either CL2 or list all of them like 2-3-3-6. As long as the first number is a 2 it will perform pretty good. 2.5 would work though.

 

[TheRook]

Maybe I should put my ram question in here. I have 256mb of pc2100 ram in my dell right now. My cpu only has a 400fsb so really 2100 is the highest I can go. I should be upgrading my ram soon and I know I can't afford 1GB. I'm looking around the $40 range, and I can get a good Samsung or Micron (I have a micron in my dell right now) 256mb for $40 and then I would have dual channel ram. Or should I get a cheap 512 stick for a toal of 768 ram but not have the dual channel?

if your cpu has a 400mhz fsb then the highest ram you really "need" to get is 3200 (400mhz) id say go for the 512 stick for a total of 768meg and then when you want to upgrade again you can get another 512 making it 1gig or 1.256gig if you have more than two slots... (but the 256 wouldnt be worth having in tbh)

Andy :afro:

 

[bosox188]

My new mobo has 4 slots, so I'll be all set with that. But I think I'd only want 2 filled, and I could get 1GB later on if I got a 512 stick now. But I would get a pc2100, can't really afford any more, just trying to get a 512 stick instead is already more than I counted on. So would 768 perform better than 2x256mb?

 

[ewilson248]

anything more than 1GB does really nothing in-game, it just speeds up loading HUGE items from your hardrive into memory. dont forget the drive is still limited by the buss speed, ultra dma is 133MB/s max.

Check this out.... Just experimented with farcry, I cranked up resolution and all the eye candy stuff and it STILL only required 400 megs of memory for itself, plus your system, mine adds about 200Mb including an anitvirus and a firewall, so thats a total of 600 MB, so 1GB is good ...with room to spare.

 

[Azrael.]

What about Corsair opposed to OCZ? I have this regular Corsair Value select (1gig) DDR400 at a relatively low latency. My friend just got a gig of this pimp looking gold plated OCZ and his latency is slightly lower. Will we see any performance differences in respect to memory?

 

[blackeye]

Will we see any performance differences in respect to memory?

It will hardly be noticable.

200Mb

My windows xp only uses 98mb of ram

How long though befor anyone thinks we will start needing more then one gig? I was hoping not untill longhorn ships. But if games start getting more demanding Some people might be upgrading late 2005 early 2006.

I dont even know if level would load any faster with two gigs vs one.

 

[ShadowBlade]

Personaly im going for 2 GB cos I play SWG which requires alot of ram if you dont want to see any slow down in built up areas.

 

[blackeye]

Ya SWG needs a lot of ram. I lagged up when I had 512 thats why I got 1 gig. MMORPG needs lots of ram.

 

[Asus]

anything more than 1GB does really nothing in-game, it just speeds up loading HUGE items from your hardrive into memory. dont forget the drive is still limited by the buss speed, ultra dma is 133MB/s max.

Check this out.... Just experimented with farcry, I cranked up resolution and all the eye candy stuff and it STILL only required 400 megs of memory for itself, plus your system, mine adds about 200Mb including an anitvirus and a firewall, so thats a total of 600 MB, so 1GB is good ...with room to spare.

Well, actually the harddrive doesn't even transfer more than 100mb/sec. 70's in burst and anywhere to 40-60 for reads.
What is limiting is not how fast your memory is but if you have enough to load it into memory. Then it stores it on the harddrive in a swap file and that's the slow part. hehe

Yeah, I've test that too. The first time it only went up to 600-700mb used total (300 system). But then I shut off all my background apps so it only used 200 and loaded up several levels and it went up to 700-900 total used (about 150MB free). Res/AA/AF shouldn't affect memory btw.

I know the swap file or virtual memory used for farcry is very large (larger than 1gb) and it just loads more in memory if you have enough.

 

[blackeye]

So is farcry the only game thats going to benefit from 2gbs of memory other then MMORPG's.

 

[sHm0zY]

The more ram you have the cooler you are :smoking: