Is 2GB better Then 1GB?

is 2 always better then 1, will i see a performance jump in multitasking?
will it be noticeable with another GB of what i got in my sig
and dreaming for the next cpmputer if 2GB is better then 1GB will 4GB be worth it over 2GB?

I'd say only if you're a hardcore gamer or use your comp as a workstation. I've never needed too much, play most games fine, but many will swear by 2Gb.

Depending on the apps you use it may make the machine smoother when doing multiple things at a time. It will also help games like BF2 / Q4 / Far Cry alot.

2GB works better for me on my Xeon duallie, but that's mainly because I fold two QMDs and they suck up 600MB+ sometimes. That leaves me with around 1GB left to do much multitasking.

2gb isn't going to help your multi-tasking unless you are encoding or image editing... I will have ~20 tabs on a browser open and maybe 4 or 5 other office apps up at the same time and I rarely break 512mb, at work. However, as noted BF2 will thank you if you run at a decent resolution and end up upgrading to 2gb (the only reason I ended up switching was BF2, it makes that much of a difference for me as I run at 1600x1200). Personally I have never seen FarCry eat up that much mem, but CoD2 will do it.

I love 2 gigs but that's mostly because I'm a huge fan of BF2. That game just soaks up memory like nobody's busness. Also I do alot of resizing in photoshop so I'll have like 40 images opened and it used to bog down with only 1 gig. The only reason I would go 1 gig is if you're going for a budget pc now, with games like FEAR and BF2 two gigs is definatly the route to take.

You'd almost never need 4GB, at least not anytime in the near future.

If possible, go with 2x1GB, it's the best configuration for AMD since you get to run at 1T configuration, so try to sell off your 2x512MB set for 2x1GB.

I moved up from 1GB to 2GB, and most noticeable increase in performance is in BF2, there are noticeable improvements in alt-tabbing through games and such. Of course web browsing wouldn't take up a lot of ram, but definitely games would take lots of ram up.

well it depends if the processor can make full use of the 2gb. if the processor is the bottleneck then chances are that 2gb wont do much good. but overclocking the cpu for more speed and getting rid of the bottleneck will make the 2gig useful

J-Mag said:

2gb isn't going to help your multi-tasking unless you are encoding or image editing... I will have ~20 tabs on a browser open and maybe 4 or 5 other office apps up at the same time and I rarely break 512mb, at work. However, as noted BF2 will thank you if you run at a decent resolution and end up upgrading to 2gb (the only reason I ended up switching was BF2, it makes that much of a difference for me as I run at 1600x1200). Personally I have never seen Far Cry eat up that much mem, but CoD2 will do it.

Click to expand...

Are you familiar with running FAH QMDs? One gig isn't enough to run two clients unless the machine is a dedicated folder. Multitasking eats up a good chunk of what's left after FAH and XP snag their portion.

One gig is a better price/performance point, right now, for most new rigs, VERY serious gamer's, and photo editing, aside.

Will four gig of RAM be better than two? Only when you have apps/games that really need that much. Other than video/photo editing and HUGE regressive analysis, I don't know of any apps that benefit from it.

If you mean to use this system for 5 years or more, I'd suggest whatever you get, make sure you can double that when you wish, in the future. If you have 4 memory slots, then 512 X 2 would do for 99% of the games/apps now, and allow you to expand to 4 X 512 (2 Gig), whenever you felt it was needed.

If you plan on holding onto the system for longer than 5 years, I'd suggest going 2 Gigs now with 2 X 1024Mb, now, which leaves the easy upgrade to 4 Gigs, available to you, later.

More memory is usually better, but every part of a RAM chip MUST be "kept alive" with a signal. Having WAY too much memory for your work/play will actually SLOW a system down, (a small amount, to be sure), because these signal sweeps have to be worked through, for more memory, and that takes time, and energy.

Adak

The sensible thing is to go with 1GB for now and see if you need more. For me 1GB is fine. Like the others I have several tabs open, limewire, winamp, MSN, and usually a few other programs. I never have problems with 1GB, at all.

i got one GB now and even now i can at times use up to over 600mb's just on apps and background tasks so thats why i was looking at 2gbs
as to 4gbs thats for the next system in about a yr from now as i figure the games for then will need it or at least will be helped with 4gbs

You know, you don't have to have enough RAM to hold EVERYTHING. Even with a page file, things shouldn't slow down at all, until XP has to swap stuff back and forth constantly (thrashing).

here is what happend with me. I upgraded my videocard from a 6600gt to a 7800gt, and i didnt see enough improvment. So i upgraded to 2 gigs of ram over 1 gig and now it really makes my videocard/cpu shine in games like BF2. It was a good investment. But if you dont have a great cpu/videocard, then IMO there is no need. You need a high end cpu/videocard to take advantage of the 2gb in games. I hope you understand what i am saying. I would say, anything lower then 2.5ghz (A64 - i dont know what a intel would compare to. maybe 4ghz??) and lower then a 6600gt-6800gt or x800-x800xl (i suppose it depends on your taste) then get 1 gig of ram