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View Full Version : Is there a thing as too much memory ?

DSM4Life
10-27-09, 06:48 AM
With windows 7 pro 64?

Buddy has 4 gigs, multi tasks and plays WOW (which seems demanding). Would bumping that 4 to 8 gigs show a decent boost ?
tool_462
10-27-09, 06:53 AM
I personally love 8GB combined with no pagefile and a SSD :D Pretty easy to see how much memory he is using, if not using nearly all of the 4GB (with Pagefile off) then there isn't much of a reason to upgrade.

Just guessing that it is DDR2, which is slowly going up in price since it isn't being produced all that much, so if he is going to upgrade, now is the time.
Sydney
10-27-09, 06:57 AM
6GB on RAID0 with no PF/SWAP here and I'm loving the performance :D

More RAM as always better if you can afford it, even though he won't feel a boost his system will be able to do smoother multitasking.
EarthDog
10-27-09, 07:01 AM
I cant imagine that 4GB isnt enough for the uses you listed really...If he can afford it and is running a 64bit OS, why not. Just make sure is expecatations are set properly as far as this likely wont be a performance increase unless he was using all/nearly all of his ram before.
Zantal
10-27-09, 07:50 AM
unused ram is wasted ram,

8gb vs 4gb only increases stress on the chipset and there is no performance increase, unless you open 4 wow instances at the same time

(with pagefile disabled they wouldn't even load with only 4gb i think)
petteyg359
10-27-09, 09:03 AM
unused ram is wasted ram,

8gb vs 4gb only increases stress on the chipset and there is no performance increase, unless you open 4 wow instances at the same time

(with pagefile disabled they wouldn't even load with only 4gb i think)

I'm quite sure Windows is able to pre-fetch thing other than WoW.
Zantal
10-27-09, 09:13 AM
I'm quite sure Windows is able to pre-fetch thing other than WoW.

what has prefetch to do with out of memory? :screwy:
petteyg359
10-27-09, 09:31 AM
Read your quote. You strongly imply that WoW is the only thing that might use memory.
Zantal
10-27-09, 10:56 AM
Read your quote. You strongly imply that WoW is the only thing that might use memory.

so maybe i don't know exactly what prefecthing does. can you explain?
MonkeyMhz
10-27-09, 11:29 AM
I have 4GB and have never fully used it, except when 3D Sculpting, tbh there's not really normal use for 8GB right now but If you see ram cheap, and your a avid multitask-er, why not.
Bobnova
10-27-09, 02:10 PM
With win7 prefetch the more ram you have the more different things can be prefetched (heh. Cached in ram, essentially) and load instantly. From that standpoint, No you cannot have too much.
However, generally speaking the more ram you have the lower your max overclock will be, and the higher your memory controller temps will be.
EarthDog
10-27-09, 02:19 PM
SUPERfetch?
Bobnova
10-27-09, 02:38 PM
Ultrafetch.

Nonono, Uberfetch! That's perfect.

(Don't speak german? Uber means "over")
petteyg359
10-28-09, 12:01 PM
Vista and 7 pre-fetch is amazing compared to XP and earlier, but I still like the "pre-fetch" on my Gentoo Linux better :)

$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4042016 3905516 136500 0 335452 2958160
-/+ buffers/cache: 611904 3430112
Swap: 6434024 168 6433856
Zhut
10-29-09, 03:00 PM
If WoW is being run in several sessions, running several accounts, I would recommend going to 8gig. 4-5 Everquest sessions and some other tabs/search engines up runs me about 6.2 gigs. Keeping an eye on task manager is helpful to decide what one may need or not need. Granted, I do not breach 6 gigs being used very often, when I do I am glad I have the ability to.