How much ram is 2 much ram?

Joeface

Looking at upgrading the amount of ram in my system

Going for 4gb to 8 hopefully. running windows 7 64bit.

Just wondering is it complete over kill or will it make use of it.

ShadowHearth

If you build new system then taking 8gb is a must, as it's so cheap.

If you got old system then it is a bit of debate:
What is that system for?
What is the price of ram if it's older system? Older ram cost more then brand new fast ones. Is it worth it?!
Do you do alot of multitasking? Got 2 or 3 screens and need them full of program's running at the same time?

If you are casual user and gamer, then 4gb is most you need. Games can't use more then 2gb ram, because most of them are coded for 32bit system anyway. To run Facebook and FarmVille, redtube and YouTube ( gigidi ) 4gb is more then enough too.

If your pc is a work station then having 8gb or 16gb is a good thing.

ShadowHearth

P.s you will need 64 bit wondows to run more then 4gb ram, though you can download 64bit version win 7 ( if you got 32bit already ) amd use same cd-key for it.

Joeface

Well system is old tech

Q6600 OC'd , GTX295 , W7 64bit Ultimate ,used for gaming a lot , and some work stuff

was changing the ram cause not all the sticks are matched . and tends to cause issues when i push for a better over clock.

ShadowHearth

I presume it's DDR 2 then so. It will be already more expencive then ddr3.

What you do for work? Some special software that will need lots of memory? If just gaming purely I would recomend sticking to 4gb, if you got spare cash go 6gb. If you find cheap 8gb deal on adverts or donedeal etc them get it.

Joeface

I'm a waiting on a response on adverts

I do circuit design and some mechanical , suppose the extra ram will add to the E-P if nothing else.

Nothingbetter2d

8gb will be fine on your pc. i know a guy with 16gb ddr 3 ram on his PC :eek:

ShadowHearth

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

8gb will be fine on your pc. i know a guy with 16gb ddr 3 ram on his PC :eek:

Nothing shocking in that, ram is super cheap these days, though not big part of people really need it. It's overkill for most setups.

7970 or 7970/7950 in pc, now that's freaking Impresive

infowars.com

i got two sticks of 4 gig was thinking about fireing in two sticks of 8 gig

ED E

Check your mobo specs before buying, every mobo has a max mem supported.

Moon54

Yeah, 8GB of Ram would be OK for that system as it's 64bit Win 7.

But, if that extra 4GB of RAM is going to cost €60-€80 euro, :0
http://www.memoryc.com/computermemory/ddr2ram.html#Capacity=4GB&page=0
it might be worth considering getting as SSD instead from a cost/benefit point of view.
Although you'd still have only 4GB of RAM, which is perfectly adequate,
the SSD would make your Quad PC really zippy and IMHO it would give you a much better PC experience overall.

Having said that, if you can pick up the 4GB RAM cheaper or second-hand, I'd say go for it.

ScumLord

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

8gb will be fine on your pc. i know a guy with 16gb ddr 3 ram on his PC :eek:

That's a perfectly reasonable amount of RAM to have.

rene13cross

8GB is perfect. I have always monitored my RAM usage and it has NEVER gone over ~5GB. And that was the absolute max I've ever seen it (not using synthetic tests of course), not some sort of average. Average is around 3-4GB when gaming heavily.

So 16GB is overkill in my oppinion. Useful for video rendering maybe..? But the average user (incl. gamers) do not render huge 3D videos, I'm sure...

Joeface

ram should be here in the next day or 2.

and was looking at ssd drive as next upgrade , putting pennies a side for that.
would love a 256gb SSD but will prob have to stick with 128gb. should be plenty of room , Really only play BF3 at the moment so that and OS on the main drive and I can move the rest on to one of the slave drives.

Tea_Bag

rene13cross wrote: »

8GB is perfect. I have always monitored my RAM usage and it has NEVER gone over ~5GB. And that was the absolute max I've ever seen it (not using synthetic tests of course), not some sort of average. Average is around 3-4GB when gaming heavily.

So 16GB is overkill in my oppinion. Useful for video rendering maybe..? But the average user (incl. gamers) do not render huge 3D videos, I'm sure...

just had an eye opener playing BF3 with NTMK the other night..

we had a few programs open, but no browsers or anything Mega RAM dependent, just CPU/GPU monitoring stuff (testing overclock) and the RAM usage was always over 5gb, peaking to 6.9gb at one point. playing on ultra settings. that's without recording gameplay.

its come to the point now that I really wouldn't get anything less than 8gb now, and 16gb is looking like quite a reasonable number.

I'm getting interested in video processing of my gameplay, and seeing as its only +€40, ill be moving to 16gb soon enough, at least before it sky rockets in price again.


OT: 2500K @ 4.8Ghz @ under 50'C @ 1.28v (and dropping voltage, but it takes ages to check for stability - Intel burn test @ max @ 30 passes)

rene13cross

Tea_Bag wrote: »

just had an eye opener playing BF3 with NTMK the other night..

we had a few programs open, but no browsers or anything Mega RAM dependent, just CPU/GPU monitoring stuff (testing overclock) and the RAM usage was always over 5gb, peaking to 6.9gb at one point. playing on ultra settings. that's without recording gameplay.

its come to the point now that I really wouldn't get anything less than 8gb now, and 16gb is looking like quite a reasonable number.

I'm getting interested in video processing of my gameplay, and seeing as its only +€40, ill be moving to 16gb soon enough, at least before it sky rockets in price again.


OT: 2500K @ 4.8Ghz @ under 50'C @ 1.28v (and dropping voltage, but it takes ages to check for stability - Intel burn test @ max @ 30 passes)

Wow, 6.9GB... Impressive I might say :P

Fair enough, I don't know how you've managed it because I run 2 1440x900 monitors (I know this has no bearing on RAM usage), and one screen is absolutely riddled with monitoring stuff and I usually have at least a browser open while gaming aswell...

I suppose I wouldn't go for anything less than 8GB either, that's for sure. And if it was cheap enough I'd get 16GB to make it more futureproof (DDR3 RAM is looking like it will be used for quite a while so no harm in having lots of it).

ScumLord

rene13cross wrote: »

So 16GB is overkill in my oppinion. Useful for video rendering maybe..? But the average user (incl. gamers) do not render huge 3D videos, I'm sure...

Yes, it all get's eaten up quite easily once your editing videos.

Stainless_Steel

We have an application in work and the min RAM requirement is 24GB! Makes me feel inadequate with my 8GB.

Joeface

Well the 8gb arrived and is installed

I believe I am seeing a difference , . I was surprised to see while running BF3 that 47% of my Ram was been used.

have some over clocking to sort out now.and see if I can smooth out a nice 3Ghz form my CPU.