I don't know why people are telling other people to use 4 gigs of slightly faster ram vs. 8 gigs of decent speed ram.

or 4 gigs in general. I dont get it. The experience from doing 4 to 8 in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit is kinda huge. Like, not ever slowing down. That's a nice thing. Not going slow. That's useful.

My Hardrive hardly drives anymore. Tic.... tic.... that's about it. Everything is loaded into memory with some room to spare.

Gaming? How about like no blips when moving around as ... everything is loaded into memory. I just dont see the point of 4 gigs unless you are doing some heavy overclocking, then of course, you need just 2 slots filled and probably arent going to buy 4x2 pieces to do that.

I bought all 8 gigs of OCZ ram at Microcenter for 130 dollars including tax after rebate.

I still have 1.5 GB free memory. How is another 4 GB of free memory going to improve my performance? What would Windows load in there to make things magically faster? Everytime people are objectively measuring 4 gig vs 8 gig performance in games they come to the conclusion that 8 gig don't help, contrary to very helpful user comments of people who are proud of their recent purchases.

It's like your recent praise of 6-core processors - how are 2 more idling cores are gonna improve my living quality? You know most of us aren't editing videos all day, don't you?

Interesting.
My performance monitor in Windows 7 64 bits says It's using about 1950 MB, has 2062 MB reserved and 50 MB free. I have about a dozen tabs open in IE, and anti virus running in the background, thunderbird is running, and I'm folding on CPU and GPU.
What will another 4GB of RAM change ? more free space in RAM if I decide to launch a game with all those things running ? or more reservd space (whatever that means) ?

Do you know most games are 32-bit, that means they can use max 2GB RAM per process and 4GB in total ? You know you need to increase Vtt in most cases for S1156 boards to even work with 4x2GB RAM ? And finally - who cares about hard drives, you should use SSD .

I was the first person of anyone I know to have had 2GB in my PC (everyone else had 1GB or less, the difference was like light and day.

Some time later, going from 2GB to 4GB makes another bounding difference, especially if using Fista or W7, and especially if playing modern games.

I am sure there is a difference between 4GB and 8GB, but as others have already pointed out it is of limited use to most people.

With regards to the question of 4GB of fast RAM vs 8GB of normal RAM, if they are at the same rough price then 8GB would be better for some users, specifically those who use multiple programs that eat through memory, whilst 4GB would be better for overclockers, and gamers who usually only run a single app at a time (a game), and have tweaked their systems for their setup anyway.

For the average user there would be nothing to gain by having more than 4GB of RAM, or for that matter very fast RAM, so primarily it comes down to price, at which point cash can be saved (or spent on other components) by using 4GB of normal speed RAM.

Personally I would suggest to anyone that they should get a nice fast SSD, it made a much larger performance difference overall than my last major upgrade did.

i.e. going from a single core AMD 4000+ with 2GB of RAM up to an overclocked C2D with 4GB of RAM made a less noticable performance increase in general use than upgrading to an SSD did (obviously gaming is not counted in that equation).

FYI I currently only have Firefox and task manager open, although NOD32 is running in the background along with Speedfan, VirtualClone Drive, and CCC. I am running W7 64-BIT with 4GB of RAM, here are the numbers according to task manager.

Physical Memory
Total: 4094
Cached: 3102
Available: 3138
Free: 41

Kernel Memory
Paged: 195
Nonpaged: 31

This is with a 64MB Page File (I only have one because some programs seem slightly unstable without one) the above number wouldnt be any different if I had a 2GB page file).

The simple definition of Available vs Free, is that Available is data that is potentially useful that has been "cached" into main memory, but can be overwritten instantly by any program that requires it, unless that programs data is actually within that "cached" portion of RAM.

Free is the amount of RAM that is currently empty.

Available is both combined.

Therefore, my PC currently has 3135MB of RAM that is can use for any program, therefore as has already been pointed out, 32-bit programs generally cant use more than 2GB anyway so 3GB of spare RAM waiting to be used is perfectly fine.

If you have "superfetch" turned on then you need every bit of RAM you can get, as it basically "caches" every program that you have installed before you even run it.

I can really see the "cached" advantage of having heaps of RAM for anyone who uses many programs throughout the day, of for anyone who plays games at the same time. Here is the reason why, if I were to open up BF2 and play a game, no problem, it is still cached from when I played it yesterday, however it eats 2GB of RAM on its own, so therefore it wipes out 2GB of cached programs out of the 3GB that it has already cached, if someone were to regulary open and close many programs that really used RAM, then the more the merrier from the "cached" data perspective, however most of that benefit would be wiped out with the use of an SSD, or as I have done disabling "superfetch".


Andy

3GB max, actually.

This is quite interesting (from the ever-useful Sysinternals) if you're curious about how your RAM is being used. There's heaps more information than Task Manager or Process Monitor provide (eg the "File Summary" tab shows exactly what's in the cache).

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... 00229.aspx

We are both right:


2 GB
Up to 3 GB with IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE and 4GT

I'm aware of IMAGE_FILE_THIS_IS_STUPIDLY_LONG.

everyone posting does not have 8 gigs of ram on windows 7 64 bit

All I have to say. But I'll say more because it's fun to type?

Note, I have 890GX motherboard and 1090T amd processor. Windows certainly uses almost all of the 8 gigs. Windows keeps using the memory to speed up your computing fun. It has enormous amounts to spare once you break the 4 gig barrier.

My hardrive hardly moves after a half hour of use and booting.
Games use 1.5 gigs normally, yes. They also use more than that ...

IF YOU HAVE IT WHICH YOU DONT LOSERS

HAHAHHAHAHHA

HHAHHAHA

HHAHAHA

yeah

its like 80 dollars to get 4 more. not like im asking people to go qwazy

A brief look around places I buy stuff from puts the prices at £73 for 2x2GB 1333 (high quality, branded), or £141 for 2x4GB 1333 (high quality, branded).

That price difference would put a lot of people off, for £68 (the price difference, you could be half way to a nice fast 64GB SSD to add to your conventional spinning disk drive, or you could choose a decent graphics card upgrade (above and beyond what was on your shopping list previously), you are most of the way to a 2TB HDD, or maybe you would prefer to buy a faster CPU instead, or even pocket the difference.

If someone wants or needs the extra RAM they will buy it, no questions asked, but trying to persuade people that this is something they NEED is a bit silly really, it would be nice to have for sure, and would mostly beat spending that money on 4GB of super fast RAM, but thats not the point is it.

Personally I would suggest people save up a little more cash and get an SSD, which will give the same kind of "instant performance" that you are now happily experiencing, except with an SSD you get that on every single program you load, everytime not just after the first time. Sounds to me like I am trying to push everyone into buying an SSD because it offers a better user experience than 8GB of RAM

Also the difference between your quote price difference of $80 works out at £52 and not the £68 price difference that I spotted.


Andy

In the US of MotherF***in' A...

It is actually only 60 dollars difference.

And tax here is like 8% max.

I said 80 to make people feel better if they got ripped off somehow. It's only 60 dollar difference.

I cant see SSD's yet. Nothing I would use would be under 250 gb's and that's super pricey

You obviously don't live in California.

I dont acknowledge that place as part of the:

US of Mother F***in' A

icky place. ew.

you do have a load of hot women though in San Diego and LA. I'm not sure that's redeemable fact though.

You make me want to finish my computer... well, more like start... all I have is the RAM so far, and a lot of it. 24 gigs. Sounds like it'll be as fun as I think it'll be.

Congrats to being a troll in rest of your post. Now i answer to this part - yes, Windows uses all 8GB of RAM - to cache, cache, cache. Now that is fine if you have a good old HDD, but with SSD it's absolutely irrelevant. With 0.1ms access time, it is just not worth the problem it brings - 2x4GB are still expensive and 4x2GB is problematic with many boards, sometimes you need to increase memory controller voltage (Vtt, IMC Voltage) just for it to be able to drive all 4 modules, otherwise you will be greeted with crashes and BSOD.

PS: I had 8GB of RAM in my previous C2D computer - and it was totally pointless.

No, I have 8GB of RAM on an OS worth spending it on.



Well done on proclaiming yourself not only to be a cock, but an ignorant one.

Wow, somebody has jumped over his medication today...



It depends on what you do with your computer. If you use programs that need that RAM it will be used, if you don't well it will just sit in the comp doing notting at all. You might just as well put it in a box on the table, it will do same good there as it will if it's installed.

Don't mind what El Jeffe is talking, he is I guess 14 years old and those kids think that the more stuff you put in you E-Penis grows, they can brag to other kids in the school.
Exeples of programs that are able to use that much RAM are, CAD, database programs, video editing, scientific programs and such.
No games use more then 4GB so far and no other consumer programs do either.

I enjoy the lemming-ness of the off-topic group think corner. It is as if off-topic means you are like at the bar after hours and the regular forums are for unique thought.

This makes me feel grandios and potent. Makes me want to bake all of you a cake and put on my party hat.

And, I dont take my meds, I spit them out after hiding them under my tongue.

On another note, how can anyone think that an SSD is an option while people are complaining about the suggestion of getting $60 more worth of ram to make a 64 bit OS work to it's fullest?

I dont see people on here ever just gaming. Also, if you don't turn off your computer, it caches everything. Wake up in morning and still gliding on by. Of course it is caching, thats what ram is. A cache. Windows 7 64 still loves to use the hd for "caching" but much less hits with 8 gigs.

8 gigs still beats out 4 gigs. I dont know what 24 gigs would do though. 6 gigs beats out 4 gigs. I just had 4 gigs at high speed and my computer runs faster with 8 gigs.

Here's a thought: 8 gigs might cause your comp to make less writes to the SSD you sunk 250 bucks into. Might make it live longer eh?

Another thought and paradox: if your OS is worth spending the 8 gigs on, you dont need the 8 gigs because you are saying "I use Linux and that certainly does NOT need 8 gigs unless you are doing some sort of sick stuff on it. This is windblows 7. Linux with 2 gigs is faster than 8 gigs on windows 7.

There seem to be no limit to your ignorance. Is Linux "faster" ? Faster in what ?
What programs did you use (that are identical) on both OS to come to that conclusion ?

Yeah, if only everybody would start to blindly agree to your bullsh*t instead of being lemmingly dissenters.



If you want a crowd more up your corner, visit just about any other computing community on the web. I suggest Tom's Hardware, they'll commend you on your insight, recommend you go 16 gb ASAP, get a 1000w PSU and triple sli.



Yeah, that seems about right.

ok well the kernel can be compiled to your own processor right? it has no bloat, it has no retarded anti-virus and other crap loaded. It web browses much faster, on the most minimal machine it serves faster, you choose with things like Arch and Gentoo exactly which processes you want to run, the OS takes up a few megabytes if you want it to or 400megs if you want it to.

it just doesnt game faster as games are written for windows.

ever try a hackintosh build? I dont know why I am even responding to this. People are using linux not because they dont want to spend 150 on a new OS every 8 years or so, it's because it runs.... faster.

this makes me want to cut myself

What have you been smoking?

And what is stopping you ? Do tell please.

8GB here on Win7 64bit. Commit is 3.1GB right now and 2GB of that is a ramdisk. SSDs don't move at all.

Went from 4GB to 8GB. Before I had 3.5GB for the OS to play with, tiny 0.5GB ramdisk. I wanted more RAM because I wanted a bigger ramdisk without sacrificing more system memory. I don't need Windows 7s tricks guessing to keep stuff in memory all the time. Non-bloat software and a SSD already takes care of that.

these cloth belts tied to my arms when I sleep.

dude, then cut you self when you are awake, what's the big deal ? It is clear that they untie you once in a while since you post all kinds of bullsh*t here,
or even better since you live in USA just go out buy a rifle (as I recall rifles you can take home the same day while you have to wait 2 weeks for handguns) and shoot your self. Or jump from a bridge (aim for the cliffs please) or jump under a train or.....you see my point ? There is so many ways you can end your life so why just restrict your self to cutting ?
And if you can, please ask somebody to videotape it and post it on youtube, it would be a great gift for my upcoming birthday (next friday).

Sweden is an inferior nation.

I do not respond to swedish comments.

Since you've already done it...USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!
http://img20.imageshack.us/f/ebtf6.png/

I am not endorsing anything else posted on the thread (and haven't read most of it), but that link is ridiculously biased and subjective, or extremely misleading due to the illegal immigration in the US.

For example, the USA has approximately 20-30 million illegal aliens who walked across the border (mostly from Mexico). This has caused things like medical care, life expectancy, infant survival rate, scientific literacy, etc, numbers to suffer. All of these illegal aliens are in included in our educational systems, visit government provided health care facilities, etc, so they are included in those numbers.

Some of the numbers such as number of mobile phones is actually a contra-indication of development in that people who were already hard-wired to the telecom system and don't have the same need for a mobile phone. In places where the wired infrastructure was lacking is where the highest concentration of mobile phones is often found. In other cases (like Germany) with 30 million illegal aliens who often times have little money (and send whatever excess money they have back to relatives in Mexico), there is no way the USA can achieve the same mobile phone per capita rates as countries that have a long history of ethnic cleansing and don't have open borders.

As an example of bias, the claim that the US ranks 41st in terms of freedom of the press is ridiculous.