No need for more than 4GB ram.

[OzzmanFloyd120]

I see PC-gamers talking about having 6GB-8GB of ram like it makes there PC faster. I have 4GB of ram and used Win7 64bit and never used all of the ram.

I dont see a need for more than 4GB when gaming. And I dont know of any aplications that use more than 4GB of system ram. In the future maby, but until then its just a waste to have more than 4GB.

Maby some video processing programs use more than 4GB of system ram but for the average gamers its a waste. /end rant.

You've never used a 64 bit version of Avid HD, have you?
Pretty much any x64 version of HD video editing software requires retarded high amounts of ram to run real-time.

 

[Kursah]

Well 4GB is the new "2GB" of a couple years ago where the gamers that could afford to do so had 2GB of DDR2 compared to 1GB. That's just how it goes, and the more we have on average, the more programs, resources, games and such will use. Along with multitasking, which it can be very helpful along with a multicore CPU. I'm using 4GB right now, but may go for 8GB in the future as I do a lot of multitasking, encoding and gaming, and even when gaming I have stuff going on in the background, but 4GB is definately the sweet spot for most that can afford to do so, which with DDR2 shouldn't be too shabby. But 2GB is still sufficient, but some larger games may slow down or stutter, and it might not even be very noticable until you upgrade to 4GB. I noticed in quite a few games a smoother overall experience in comparison to 2GB, smoother multitasking, and just overall an improved experience with what I use my PC for. I'm sure 6-8GB is nice too, but definately not required, if this thread was started to jab at those that can afford it, feel they need it or run it because they do need it, that's kind of pointless. But in reality, 2GB is still sufficient, 4GB is the current sweet spot, and you can guess that anywhere from 6-12GB will be the sweet spot of the short future within 2 years, the PC industry is growing fast enough to deem that possible, not necessary though!

 

[mlee49]

Yeah the avid gamer will probably not need more than 4GB of RAM. Having 6+ is really overkill unless you do 3D rendering or AutoCAD(pretty much the same thing).
Theres is absolutely no need for 12 GB of RAM in a 'gaming' machine and its a marketing ploy for companies like Alienware to rip thier customers off with. It's all EGO man.

And btw, 5 pages in 24 hours= Uber thread!

 

[Flibolito]

There is alot of info/opinions/fact in this thread
I did make my decision from it though. I will keep my current 2GB kit in this one and keep the 4GB for the next one or just as a backup, since the only performance increase would be in Warhead and only in 3 minutes of the train level ( ill get over it ). but the new system to be built in 2-4 months will prolly sport 6GB if i go DDR3 or 4/8GB if i do DDR2. To me it comes down to price vs performance like upgrading a car.

 

[ntdouglas]

The more you have, the more your system will use. If its not using all 4g that you have, its because you only have 4g. Its cheap, and it helps.

 

[Nick89]

Not using the full 4gb's doesn't mean 6/8gb is not needed. Basically the more ram u have, the more the system will use as cache, thus speeding up ur pc. FYI, Graphics editing/Vista = 6GB-8GB is not overkill.

Your exactly right. Everytime I've upped the amount of ram, vista uses more. Same with games. When I was playing crysis, at times it was using 5g. And plays sooooo smooth. Just because you have 4g and windows and apps are using a certain amount, doesn't mean it will use the same amount if you double your amount of ram.

You've never used a 64 bit version of Avid HD, have you?
Pretty much any x64 version of HD video editing software requires retarded high amounts of ram to run real-time.

OMGWTF

I said 4GB is enough for gaming(who still plays crysis?) I said you may need more than 4GB for programs like video editing/encoding. WTF, this is about games not needing more than 4GB (except Crysis) and I dont even play crysis anymore.

I never said that there were no other programs that used more than 4GB I said more than 4GB is a waste for gamers, I never said it was a waste for people who render,encode,edit videos, Use CAD or other graphics design software. In those case more than 4GB is good.

 

[Flibolito]

I still play crysis once in a while to show off the system to friends who just don't know what's possible on modern PC's and think their consoles have good graphics (which they do for what they are). But in my honest opinion and not to be a fanboy when Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 come out i will be only playing Blizzard games which usually do well on requirements and are great games to boot. So my 2GB system will play all the new games that ill get into fine

 

[thebeephaha]

I max out my 8GB easily. Try editing a couple 12MP RAW files in CS4 and doing batch processing while having iTunes going, FireFox with like 5-10 tabs, Vista being Vista, etc.

I also will game while having all those other things open in the background.

8GB+ is not "needed" but it's so cheap these days why not?

 

[Fleck]

I max out my 8GB easily. Try editing a couple 12MP RAW files in CS4 and doing batch processing while having iTunes going, FireFox with like 5-10 tabs, Vista being Vista, etc.

I also will game while having all those other things open in the background.

8GB+ is not "needed" but it's so cheap these days why not?

Liiike I said.. alllmost nobody needs more than 2GB of RAM.

Anyone using more is a fanboy who wanted the bigdick analogy of having 4+GB of RAM, or professionals or serious gamers like urself.

 

[DrPepper]

Sorry for this massive post, I've been busy.

Nop , you have to give away for free 64-bit CPUs

Who doesn't have at least an A64 or P4 processor. If you don't then you shouldn't be upgrading your OS.

silkstone ... because of your story , i like to say few words ...

One fast gaming machine , must have running as less background process as possible.
By having this on mind , we save Ram and CPU cycles , and the Game runs more stable .

I'd killing processes in the background to be pointless these days unless you are benchmarking. At best you would get 1 or 2 fps and even then the OS itself will run slower.

Need moar memory. It's caching 5 gigs as it is.

Not enough until it runs out of stuff to cache, imo.

Are you going to get so much ram you might as well stick the whole OS on it

Eh not to burst bubbles, I stuck 8gb in my machine about 2 weeks ago and playing supcom and well it was faster...... Probably the only game in existence that would use it though.

Exactly supcom whores up tons of RAM and processors.

Yeah the avid gamer will probably not need more than 4GB of RAM. Having 6+ is really overkill unless you do 3D rendering or AutoCAD(pretty much the same thing).
Theres is absolutely no need for 12 GB of RAM in a 'gaming' machine and its a marketing ploy for companies like Alienware to rip thier customers off with. It's all EGO man.

And btw, 5 pages in 24 hours= Uber thread!

Avid gamers would want more than 4gb of ram. If an avid gamer wouldn't want more ram then why would they want a dual core, SLI and xfire etc.

OMGWTF

I said 4GB is enough for gaming(who still plays crysis?) I said you may need more than 4GB for programs like video editing/encoding. WTF, this is about games not needing more than 4GB (except Crysis) and I dont even play crysis anymore.

I never said that there were no other programs that used more than 4GB I said more than 4GB is a waste for gamers, I never said it was a waste for people who render,encode,edit videos, Use CAD or other graphics design software. In those case more than 4GB is good.

I still play crysis regularly and games like supcom use up alot of RAM and still run slow.

Liiike I said.. alllmost nobody needs more than 2GB of RAM.

I bet you'd get a 20% increase in performance if you added another 2gb on top of that and another 10% if you got 8gb. Large increases in performance which are very cheap.

 

[phanbuey]

....

Well... after reading all that... im thinkin of buyin another 4gB

 

[DrPepper]

Well... after reading all that... im thinkin of buyin another 4gB

Well if I had a core i7 system I'd get as much RAM as I could for it. Saves me having to get more later on.

 

[Silverel]

Are you going to get so much ram you might as well stick the whole OS on it

YES

I can handle 32GB of ram in my board. If I cache the whole OS that'd be FREAKING SWEET.

Plus, it makes for yet another asinine point in this thread that can irritate the few 2GB lovers that won't pony up 20$ for 4GB.


Really though guys, do what ya like. If 2 is enough, have at it. I just don't think anyone with 4+ will be satisfied moving back down to 2. Main reason being (placebo or not), performance losses.

 

[DrPepper]

YES

I can handle 32GB of ram in my board. If I cache the whole OS that'd be FREAKING SWEET.

I'd totally do the same If you could have the OS on the RAM at startup it would be sweet.

 

[InnocentCriminal]

I always wanted a Gigabyte RAM disk.

 

[r9]

There is no doubt that one day we all are going to have 8GB but it is not today. I`m talking from perspective of game and casual computer user. Yes there are ways to use that much RAM.
The point is if you know that you need that much ram that is it but if you are not to sure than provable you ain`t going to need it.
But it is not not too big of a mistake taking it to consideration low RAM prices.
4GB@4GB cashed and 8GB@4GB cashed I think that loading process would go faster on 8GB because of less time needed to find place to alocate memory.

 

[Fleck]

I bet you'd get a 20% increase in performance if you added another 2gb on top of that and another 10% if you got 8gb. Large increases in performance which are very cheap.

Why would I get a performance increase from RAM that my system wouldn't be using? The benchmarks themselves show like a 1% performance increase from unused RAM. Hell some stuff even goes lower, the processor has to do work to sort all that RAM too, ya know.

 

[r9]

I'd totally do the same If you could have the OS on the RAM at startup it would be sweet.

The OS would load 5 min.

 

[DrPepper]

Why would I get a performance increase from RAM that my system wouldn't be using? The benchmarks themselves show like a 1% performance increase from unused RAM. Hell some stuff even goes lower, the processor has to do work to sort all that RAM too, ya know.

Why would you get a performance increase from anything that isn't being used ? Of course you won't but the RAM is being used all the time for caching and for applications that are open. I've always been ahead of times by having more ram than needed E.g when everyone thought 512 was enough I got 1gb and when 1gb was standard I got 2 but recently I've fell out the loop and I'm stuck with 4gb until I can afford an i7 where I will get as much ram as that will allow.

The OS would load 5 min.

Don't turn it off then

 

[Fleck]

Why would you get a performance increase from anything that isn't being used ? Of course you won't but the RAM is being used all the time for caching and for applications that are open.

Bah, mIRC, Pidgin, uTorrent and Firefox, maybe the occasional 720p movie/show. None of it gets close to needing more than 2GB of space. Hell 1GB was fine until I upgraded to Vista and COD4 had problems.

Will I buy 2 more sticks down the line? Yeah, shortly after trading in my piece of crap mobo with 2 slots at single channel to boot. I'll have 4GB soon, I'm just saying most people don't need it. Neither do I, but I wanna see what its like to roll with no pagefile.

 

[Silverel]

Bah, mIRC, Pidgin, uTorrent and Firefox, maybe the occasional 720p movie/show. None of it gets close to needing more than 2GB of space. Hell 1GB was fine until I upgraded to Vista and COD4 had problems.

Will I buy 2 more sticks down the line? Yeah, shortly after trading in my piece of crap mobo with 2 slots at single channel to boot. I'll have 4GB soon, I'm just saying most people don't need it. Neither do I, but I wanna see what its like to roll with no pagefile.

You'll want to keep a minimal pagefile. Mine is 300MB... There's a good handful of programs that will freak out if there's no pagefile set, regardless of how much they use it.

Also, figure the recommended pagefile is 2x your RAM, you should have ~6GB of vRam now to run "properly". One of the reasons I'm at 6GB of physical ram now.

 

[silkstone]

Slightly OT but someone mentioned it before so those Gigabye ram disks actually work well? They have them dirt cheap near where i live.

 

[Fleck]

You'll want to keep a minimal pagefile. Mine is 300MB... There's a good handful of programs that will freak out if there's no pagefile set, regardless of how much they use it.

Also, figure the recommended pagefile is 2x your RAM, you should have ~6GB of vRam now to run "properly". One of the reasons I'm at 6GB of physical ram now.

Oh yeah that's right, Photoshop will be like "WTF WTF!!!" LOL

 

[sweeper]

well crap.... heck I might jump up to 4GB to see what the fuss is all about. Throw in a few games, apps, photo editing, etc. and see if I get a bit more performance. But, I'm on an older PC and 2 more GB is more expensive than 99% of the users here. LOL.

 

[frankie827]

i think 4gb+ ram is necessary if you want to play games like GTAIV. i was playing on Vista HP 32bit and i had lower fps than i did with windows 7 64bit. same thing with benchmarks such as 3dmark06 and vantage.