Considering upgrading from 2GB to 4GB

I'm considering getting this 2GB set, my current RAM has D9GMHs and rated at 1066+ but I only run them at 800 so dont need the speed. I could get about £60 on eBay for them, which means I could upgrade to 4GB for only £10

Anyone have experience with these OCZ DIMMs, or an idea what ICs they use?

I'm still trying to answer that most discussed of questions, is 4GB worth it for gaming?

Thanks.

If you have xp then 2gb should be enough. Under vista it might be different story.

With 32-bit systems such as XP or some versions of Vista, you only have access to 2G of memory. Using the 3GB option on boot you can increase it some. That said, you won't see much gain with most games since they run on 32-bit systems.

deeppow said:

With 32-bit systems such as XP or some versions of Vista, you only have access to 2G of memory. Using the 3GB option on boot you can increase it some. That said, you won't see much gain with most games since they run on 32-bit systems.

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That is a very good point. Everyone gets a 64bit OS and jumps for joy, but never realize that their applications they run might revert to 32bit!

That 2GB limit is per application. So multiply that by the number of applications running to know how much ram they can potentially use.

So if Windows can see 3.x GB they can all be used

hansen said:

That 2GB limit is per application. So multiply that by the number of applications running to know how much ram they can potentially use.

So if Windows can see 3.x GB they can all be used

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yes but if an application like say. Battlefield 2 only uses ~700MB it wont increase when you go from 2GB to 4GB So yes you could run 4 instances instead of 2 but what is the point? Other than intense 3D rendering applications (lightwave, 3ds MAX or adobe products) you are not going to see any benefit from going to 3/4GB on a 32bit system if you are not already using say 80% of what you have now.


However, is it worth an extra £10 to go from 2-4GB? heck yes IMO, £10 is nothing compared to what you would be getting and in the end if/when you do upgrade to vista you will have the memory already there. But 4GB will not improve gaming experiences if you already have 2GB

The potential for future use makes it worth it IMO.

First consider upgrading to a 64 Bit OS!

Grab a copy of Vista 64 and then throw 4 GB, otherwise I'd stick with two. I went from 2-3 on my XP machine and saw zero difference. I've not once in all my gaming time noticed it over 75% full on 2 GB.

DvBoard said:

The potential for future use makes it worth it IMO.

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Why? In the future it will be cheaper and there will be better solutions.

Trottel said:

Why? In the future it will be cheaper and there will be better solutions.

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I do not see DDR2 getting much cheaper than what it is. Yes, DDR3 is coming along but I dont see the need to upgrade to that until Nehalem comes around next year due to cost/performance ratio just isnt there yet.

thanks for all the responses guys.

I'm still undecided whether to upgrade, as I want to get a new 45nm C2D CPU in Jan, and it seems since they're easily capable of 4Ghz I would need some fast RAM to take full advantage of a new CPU. Therefore I'm going to stick with these D9s and see what happens

Btw, for people that said over 2GB is pointless in 32bit OS, especially for games. On my brothers rig, he would get irritating lag for about 30 secs when he first loaded BioShock, he upgraded to 4GB (bought another 2GB) and lag disappeared. So it does make some difference.