Do You Need 4GB of RAM???

[AlKaPwNeD3]

I see most people running with 2GB of RAM on their rigs and they seem to be doing great, does having 4 Gigs make you that much better than those with 2 Gigs?

 

[Ehstii]

depends on the person and what they are doing with thier PC

 

[ktr]

Not really. My g15 says that i use around 45-50% of my memory when gaming, which is 3gb according to XP.

 

[ShadowFold]

2gb should be good for another few years(I hope..)

 

[Disparia]

For what I do, it's nice to have 4GB.

Might go to 8GB on my next upgrade.

 

[Duxx]

You running Vista or XP? Depends mostly on what you are running, i.e. programs that use a lot of memory or not. Basic tasks and limited gaming dont need more than 2gig

 

[Batou1986]

as far as ram gos more is all ways better imo with ram hoggin os like vista and ea's habit of releasing games with major memory leaks you cant go wrong with 4 gigs.

but if the rest of your system is crap like mine 4 gigs isnt really gonna help much

 

[Nitro-Max]

4 gig does make a difference when running vista and crysis apparently it is well noticable as the game is very demanding and vista is more demanding than xp.

 

[Nitro-Max]

2 gigs fine for xp

 

[hat]

I fold and 2GB running at DDR600 is fine for me

 

[erocker]

I'll go to 4gb when DDR3 2x2gb sticks are cheaper and readily available.

 

[ntdouglas]

These forums are all about wants not needs. But, as with computers, the more the merrier.

 

[vega22]

i have just upped mine from 2 to 4gb and gaming in vista is now lag free, games like cod4 and crysis will quite happily fill 2gb so for me 2gb isnt enough. it is plenty for xp tho.

edit
i can now run 6gb if i wanted tho because like its said above, the more the merrier

 

[rampage]

all depends what you are doing... i loved my old ocz ram 1T 940 mhz 4-4-4-8 and it owned most ram out there, but now im on 4 gig of generic 1066..... and almost wish i had the old 2 gig kit

 

[Shurakai]

Well for gaming i use 2gb, it's all i need, even with Crysis there is 500-600mb free on Vista. Personally i recommend sticking with 2gb, if your gaming you shouldn't need more than that, who knows maybe in the future DDR3 will drop in price and then you can grab 4gb+ of that

 

[Mussels]

always, always systems need more ram.

last year, 1GB was normal and 2GB was great. Now its 4GB is great and 2GB is 'on par'

It depends what you're running, heavy gamers will definately want the more ram - many games are using 2-2.5GB on max settings, so you DO need 3GB or more ram to fully run those games.

Since 3GB doesnt work in dual channel, that leaves 4GB - so why not? rams so cheap nowadays.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Since 3GB doesnt work in dual channel, that leaves 4GB - so why not? rams so cheap nowadays.

Dual channel simply means 2 identical channels. ie 2 channels each with 1GB+512MB allows dual channel and results in 3GB.

I have to agree on the cheap argument however. You can get 4GB for under 100 euros, why would you not get it?

 

[Mussels]

Dual channel simply means 2 identical channels. ie 2 channels each with 1GB+512MB allows dual channel and results in 3GB.

Only on intel chipsets. - i speak globally.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Only on intel chipsets. - i speak globally.

As do I, I highly doubt AMD chips can't do it. If they can't they probably implemented it wrong.

 

[Mussels]

As do I, I highly doubt AMD chips can't do it. If they can't they probably implemented it wrong.

asynchrnous dual channel is intel only from everything i have seen. I had 2x512 and 4x1GB sticks of DDR1 and DDR2 (400/800 respectively) and we got bored at a lan and decided to see what sockerts it worked on - using CPUZ to test.

on AMD, Via, SiS and Nforce chipsets only matched pairs worked. 2x or 4x of the same size.

On intel chipsets (notice i say CHIPSETS, and not just intel CPU's) it worked on many of them. Asynchronous ram was reported in bios on a few, and in CPU'z for almost all - even going as far back as a 975x board (oldest we had there)

its a chipset thing, and because there as so many various chipsets out there i just act like it doesnt work, rather than have people spend money and find out their board cant do it.

P.S - there are two modes. Asynchronous (3x1GB for example) where the first two sticks are in DC and the 3rd isnt. Then theres Dual channel asyncronous (1x1GB and 2x512) where it still gets full dual channel. (I may have those confused/backwards. plz correct me if i have - i remember the results, not the names)

 

[Deleted member 3]

How isn't it synchronous? The channels remain identical.

 

[Wile E]

My DFI UltraII M2 ran in dual channel with 2x1GB + 2x512MB, on all of my AMD cpus. You sure it wasn't just a bios bug or something like that?

 

[LiveOrDie]

yes it does i have G15 and in COD4 2gb would max out and i don't trust memory usage in vista i know when i run at of memory game start to lag, in windows vista it will alway use 15-40% of your ram if you uses 2 or 4GB of ram, if your using vista then go with the 4GB

 

[HookeyStreet]

If gaming in XP, 2GB is fine. But once you make the jump to Vista, you really need 4GB to get the most out of your games. Anything more than 4GB for gaming is overkill IMHO.

 

[HiDDeNMisT]

on mine im running vista ultimate with 2 gb of ram.

just running vista alone takes up about 50 percent of ram i going to upgrade to four gigs soon