4GB vs 8GB
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Roger_Young




Posts: 1408
Location: Portugal
PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 18:39    Post subject: 4GB vs 8GB
I've 4GB installed in my rig.
The question is does it make sense to upgrade to 8GB, considering that a lot games seem not using the extra memory? I know that memory is quite cheap again when comparing the time I bought it. So I wouldn't mind to make an upgrade as long it's justifiable.

Also, I've my I5-750 overclocked to 3.2Ghz. If I use four sticks can I have stability problems with my system due to the overclock?

Thanks.
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fisk




Posts: 9145
Location: Von Oben
PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 19:11    Post subject:
8GB is the bare minimum I would call usable on modern computers.

4GB is a lot slower, and 2GB is for those who still live in the 32-bit world (aka people who still live in the pre-2005 world)


Yes, yes I'm back.
Somewhat.
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BearishSun




Posts: 4484

PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 19:19    Post subject:
It's unlikely you will see any kind of performance increase unless you're doing something that uses up that much memory.

I had 4GB up until few months ago and memory certainly was no bottleneck.

EDIT: Actually I'm using an SSD so it's possible stuff might be a lot slower for you, as my paging file was on the SSD. Personally I don't notice a difference between 4GB then and 16GB now.
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Kamikaze666




Posts: 3550

PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 19:23    Post subject:
I have no performance complaints with 4 gb on win7.

But yea ram is cheap so why not upgrade.


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Paintface




Posts: 6877

PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 19:42    Post subject:
if you would buy a new computer 8gb cause its so cheap, but i wouldnt bother upgrading it on your current rig since you got 4gb.
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Shoshomiga




Posts: 2378
Location: Bulgaria
PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 20:28    Post subject: I have left.
I have left.
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kumkss




Posts: 4835
Location: Chile
PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 20:40    Post subject:
upgrade to 12 or 16. you won't regret it Very Happy
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deelix
PDIP Member



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Location: Norway
PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 20:48    Post subject:
you will if you're using 32bit OS Troll Face
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Double-=V=-




Posts: 308

PostPosted: Mon, 25th Jun 2012 21:29    Post subject:
I went from 4gb to 16gb. 16gig is overkill but i noticed a slight increase in games like serious sam 3 and saints row the third. My fps went up with 3fps and in saints row the third the driving seemed smoother. Serious Sam 3 really benefits from 8 gigs or more as you can read on the forums. Other games you don't really notice a difference.
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outtanames




Posts: 1591

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 01:13    Post subject:
Ram is so cheap these days so 8 gigs is a minimum like previously said.
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Immunity




Posts: 5627

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 03:58    Post subject:
I've been running 6GB in triple channel for like 2 years now...absolutely no performance issues whatsoever on any games or when multitasking.

For the people saying 8/12/16, what the fuck are you running that's eating that much memory, 6 instances of BF3 at once? Seriously... Very Happy


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Frant
King's Bounty



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Location: Your Mom
PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 05:58    Post subject:
With 8+ GB you can disable paging file altogether and enjoy better performance. Smile


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_SiN_
Megatron



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Location: Cybertron
PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 10:27    Post subject:


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Newty182




Posts: 10805
Location: UK
PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 10:53    Post subject:
Frant wrote:
With 8+ GB you can disable paging file altogether and enjoy better performance. Smile


The performance benefit is insignificant. http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/


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rgb#000
Banned



Posts: 5118

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 11:17    Post subject:
Frant wrote:
With 8+ GB you can disable paging file altogether and enjoy better performance. Smile

you can't disable paging file if you want all OS functions to work properly. i can easily prove my point. disable paging file and initiate Check Disk on any HDD, even if you have 16GB of RAM you will be greeted with a nice "out of memory" message after a few minutes of checking. this doesn't happen with paging file enabled.

disabling paging file leads to all kind of weird memory leaks and other problems, not just in windows but in other apps too. so even with 8 or 16GB of RAM it's good practice to have some paging file, it doesn't need to be big, 1GB or so is enough.
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BearishSun




Posts: 4484

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 11:44    Post subject:
Disabling paging file will not lead to memory leaks. It will cause a crash once you run out of memory, which would not happen (so easily) with a paging file, but that's the only consequence.

Check disk seems to be using incredible amounts of memory for whatever reason, and that's the only application that I have heard of using that much, so that's why it crashes.

But you can run without paging file just fine. I have for months and not a single memory related crash what so ever.
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rgb#000
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Posts: 5118

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 12:03    Post subject:
BearishSun wrote:
Check disk seems to be using incredible amounts of memory for whatever reason, and that's the only application that I have heard of using that much, so that's why it crashes.

you haven't heard much then Razz

most creative apps nowadays can easily use up 16GB of ram like it's nothing, i'm talking about after effects, 3ds max/maya, photoshop with big res works etc.
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BearishSun




Posts: 4484

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 12:14    Post subject:
Well I'm using both 3ds max and photoshop. Sometimes I'll have 3ds max, photoshop, Unity, Visual Studio & MonoDevelop running at the same time. No memory issues what so ever.

No paging file for 16GB is going to be fine for 99.5% of the users. Those 0.5% that are working with massive photoshop images, or raytracing massive scenes in Max probably know better anyway.

And you can always re-enable paging file if you crash a lot. And the fact is, you can crash just the same with or without paging file. If you have 8GB of RAM and only 8GB of free space on your page file partition, you're going to crash the same as if you had 16GB with no paging file.

But if you do have paging file windows will start swapping data as soon as it's not being used (even if you have 90% of physical memory free), which will cause performance degradation as you switch between apps if you're on a HDD, and on (usually small) SSDs it's just wasting space.
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rgb#000
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PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 12:21    Post subject:
BearishSun, you really need to check out Newty182's link.
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BearishSun




Posts: 4484

PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 12:37    Post subject:
I've checked it out when he posted it. It's a synthetic benchmark and in reality it tests pagefile very little (I mean PCMark and SiSoft sandra scores, really?). Anyone with a HDD can tell you that swapping will cause a slow down. Try working with one memory intensive app, switching to another for a while and then switching back. You hard drive will start working like nuts. It's a fairly obvious clue right there. Any PC user knows this feeling so I'm not sure what we're arguing about.

I agree you will probably not see a visible speed up if you're using SSD, or if you're switching between small apps, or maybe even if you have a newly formatted fresh fast HDD.
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LeoNatan
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PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 13:52    Post subject:
fisk wrote:
and 2GB is for those who still live in the 32-bit world (aka people who still live in the pre-2005 world)

You mean those who have still not updated to Vista Troll Dad Wink
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PumpAction
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PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 14:17    Post subject:
Is disabling the page file the same as mapping your mem to a drive and then deploying the page file there, directly on the ram?


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garus
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PostPosted: Tue, 26th Jun 2012 14:19    Post subject:
snip


Last edited by garus on Tue, 27th Aug 2024 21:41; edited 1 time in total
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outtanames




Posts: 1591

PostPosted: Wed, 27th Jun 2012 04:25    Post subject:
You mustn't disable the page file, it causes problems, I tried. Laughing
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rgb#000
Banned



Posts: 5118

PostPosted: Wed, 27th Jun 2012 07:12    Post subject:
outtanames wrote:
You mustn't disable the page file, it causes problems, I tried. Laughing

+1
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Frant
King's Bounty



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Location: Your Mom
PostPosted: Wed, 27th Jun 2012 08:42    Post subject:
I've run without pagefile for over a year, no crashes, no issues, and I've saved writes on my SSD. Wink


ps. I checked C: through G: with Task Manager open. The max amount of RAM that was committed was 1.97GB. I think you are vastly outdated with your "knowledge".

 Spoiler:
 


You can see the little bumps that showed up when I did CHKDSK C: /F through G:


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4treyu




Posts: 23133

PostPosted: Wed, 27th Jun 2012 09:08    Post subject:
Going from 4 to 8 GB of RAM recently did a really noticeable difference for me, specially in games like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. I was hitting the pagefile too often before the upgrade so I had lots of stuttering in those games nearly maxed out.

I say it's worth it for any hardcore gamer playing at very high details.
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outtanames




Posts: 1591

PostPosted: Wed, 27th Jun 2012 14:13    Post subject:
Frant wrote:
I've run without pagefile for over a year, no crashes, no issues, and I've saved writes on my SSD. Wink


ps. I checked C: through G: with Task Manager open. The max amount of RAM that was committed was 1.97GB. I think you are vastly outdated with your "knowledge".

 Spoiler:
 


You can see the little bumps that showed up when I did CHKDSK C: /F through G:


I tried disabling it completely and I ran into problems. I think I also tried setting it to the minimum which is 410 mb or so and also had issues.
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Roger_Young




Posts: 1408
Location: Portugal
PostPosted: Wed, 27th Jun 2012 15:15    Post subject:
Thanks for all the opinions so far.
I think I'll wait for ArmA3 community alpha test, probably it will be the time where I'll have to exchange my "old" graphic card an ATI 4890 with a newer card. I still don't know if I'm going Nvidia or ATI. But that will be another matter.
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