Advantages of More RAM?

Big Purds · Apr 22, 2003

I currently have 512M of Kingston HyperX pc3000 RAM, and have opportunity on another 512 stick for a killer price...

I am wondering if I will notice any difference or if is an advisable purchase for a guy who does nothing more than a bit of cruising the net and playing a few online games...

any input would be appreciated...

Damian · Apr 22, 2003

No, it won't make a huge difference. More than 512M RAM only helps if you're multasking a lot, running extremely memory-hungry programs (Photoshop, CAD) or want slightly shorter loading times in some games.

Vovan · Apr 22, 2003

With 1Gb of mem, you will be able to turn page-swaping off really completely and take use of the free ~ 100MB hdd space

oops · Apr 22, 2003

Battlefield 1942 takes lots of RAM...when I use 512MB RAM, it shows "32MB free" and the game was laggy, when I use 1024MB RAM, it shows about 200 ~~ 300MB free and lots smoother.

also once when I was downloading a 300MB+ file, and play BF1942 at the same time with 1GB RAM, after a while I guess the downloading was almost finished, the game suddenly started to be very laggy...so I checked the free RAM was down to 70MB...that's out of 1GB. (I guess the unfinished downloading files are all stored on the RAM.)

So basicly if you often run multiple tasks with memory hunger programs, and if the system often slow down due to low free RAM, then you need 1GB or more RAM. Otherwise, 512MB should be enough.

KCN · Apr 22, 2003

this is something i'de like to know about aswel. i have my comp on 24/7 downloading but if i play games aswel i get lag and slower loading times i only have 256MB of ram at the mo but am thinking of getting 1GB: is this going to be overkill compared to getting just 512MB?
Thanks dudes

Top Hat Theater · Apr 22, 2003

It'll help however it also may depend on your hard drive's read/write times as well as fragmentation of the drive. The best setup would probably be to have the game installed on one drive and the dls being written to a seperate drive. That's the way I did it when I had two drives.

~THT

Big Purds · Apr 25, 2003

lol, the reason I built this rig was solely to play games on...I may use it occaisionally to do other tasks, but not often...

I am thinking that since it is a great deal, I may as well get it...it wont hurt anything afterall...and the dual DDR function of the mobo sounds like something I shoud really try to use

Overclocker456 · Apr 25, 2003

it depends what you mean by killer price.. how good the price is will determine if it's worth it or not..

skahtul · Apr 26, 2003

Also, more (and I mean gobs of it) will be usefull if you plan to run a game server. Also don't forget that the OS makes a differance. Windows 98 uses much less RAM to load its OS than does XP even though XP will manage it better for you.

Captain Hilts · Apr 26, 2003

In my experience, I don't even notice much or any difference between using 256MB or 512MB (I'm running single channel, btw). The main reason I went to 512MB was because of SimCity4, which uses quite a bit of memory. Any other game I've played hasn't used more than the 256MB anyway, so it's never doing to disc during gameplay.

I heard Photoshop could use a lot, but I don't use that anyway.

Big Purds · Apr 27, 2003

well...how does $45 USD for 512M of the pc3000 HyperX sound as far as cheap goes?

sounds pretty cheap to me...

I am running 2kPro...

pip · Apr 27, 2003

oops said:
Battlefield 1942 takes lots of RAM...when I use 512MB RAM, it shows "32MB free" and the game was laggy, when I use 1024MB RAM, it shows about 200 ~~ 300MB free and lots smoother.

also once when I was downloading a 300MB+ file, and play BF1942 at the same time with 1GB RAM, after a while I guess the downloading was almost finished, the game suddenly started to be very laggy...so I checked the free RAM was down to 70MB...that's out of 1GB. (I guess the unfinished downloading files are all stored on the RAM.)

So basicly if you often run multiple tasks with memory hunger programs, and if the system often slow down due to low free RAM, then you need 1GB or more RAM. Otherwise, 512MB should be enough.

that's why I use Opera it writes directly to the HD

Overclocker456 · Apr 27, 2003

Big Purds said:
well...how does $45 USD for 512M of the pc3000 HyperX sound as far as cheap goes?

sounds pretty cheap to me...

I am running 2kPro...

The price is very good, I'd probably get it, although please note one thing, it might make your ram overall slower, the more sticks you have in your system the more relaxed your timings must be.

Big Purds · Apr 27, 2003

what about dual channel DDR?

should this not be faster with 2 sticks?

Big Purds · Apr 28, 2003

can anyone tell me?

Kendan · Apr 28, 2003

I think he means that you might not be able to push the ram to as high of an FSB speed with two sticks over one. In that case you could relax the timings a little to get the FSB higher. It will not be slower because you run two sticks.

oops · Apr 28, 2003

Big Purds said:
can anyone tell me?

it's not worth to have dual channel set up for an AMD system.

Vovan · Apr 28, 2003

Not true, oops. It is faster. Look for the thread Dual Channel for Beginners for Info , cause this thing was discussed here too much.

Big Purds · Apr 28, 2003

oops said:
it's not worth to have dual channel set up for an AMD system.

why is it not worth it to use the dual channel system for amd setups???

Tw00sh · Apr 28, 2003

No, it won't make a huge difference. More than 512M RAM only helps if you're multasking a lot, running extremely memory-hungry programs (Photoshop, CAD) or want slightly shorter loading times in some games.

This is the usual responce from people that run less than 1 gig of memory.

This is what you do! If you can afford it, get it. Why? Because in those cases where you need it, you will be glad you have it. On top of that, it would be foolish to think it will not become the standard in the near future, just like 512 seems to be now.

There is no way I would go back to 512 after using and experience the smoothness that 1gig gives me.

I can tell a difference. so I am sure many others can

Advantages of More RAM?

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