+2gb RAM with vista?

[Andeh13]

Im just curious to see whether it is worth me upgradeing to 4gb of RAM. I do a lot of multi tasking, torrents, music & MSN running all the time, with a lot of web use, films and games thrown in on the side. Would an extra 2gb make any difference or would it just be over kill?


Iv got a system built round a Q6600 & vista x64, lack of sleep is preventing me from reeling off the rest of the specs.


cheers guys.

[cptwhite_uk]

I doubt 4Gb is worth it for what seems to be your main priority: torrents, music & MSN.

However if you want to video encode while you game, then yes it's worth it.

[DataMatrix]

I have 4GB and Vista x64 can idle at 75% RAM usage (3 GB). Vista has brilliant memory management. It will use all or most of your RAM up until it is needed (e.g. it will keep IE in memory so it opens faster but if an app needs the RAM it will remove it from memory).

[moogle]

get 4gb, i was on vista and it was using about 997 on startup.. 2gb was for xp and now 4gb+ is for vista.

[aidanjt]

Most of Vista's apparent memory usage is due to caching, buffers, and prefetching, all this stuff is squeezed down when real apps allocate memory. 2GB is sufficient unless you're using memory intensive programs.

[acrobat]

It all depends on those games. Torrents, music, films and web use, all use very little RAM. (dont use Azureus by the way). You should be able to do all that, at the same time, without stressing out your PC. But if you like playing games, and they are modern games, then you could do a lot worse than getting another 2 gig.

Its not very expensive nowdays.

[moogle]

id be getting 4gb min, possibly 8 if its real cheap

[acrobat]

Wish I could have 8. But I would need a motherboard with 8 slots. Or have to re-buy new RAM in 2gig chips, and my current 2gig are in 1gig chips. :/

[WannaPiEcE]

IMO 4 GB is overkill even on a 64 bit system.
When I first installed Vista x64 I wanted to test out the board's memory capacity and loaded up with 4x2GB of ram, I noticed absolutely no difference between 8GB~2GB.
Really there is no noticeable performance difference at all, I mean I'll run benchmarks and my 2x1 GB setup will get slightly high benchies than my 4x1 (same ram same speed).
Also the more ram you add the more concerned you need to be with the heat produced and the power needed.
IMO 3 GB is great for everyone, but they dont have 2x1.5GB kits (think they should)

[Koolpc]

4g is not worth the extra cost etc.

[aidanjt]

well 4x1GB sticks will only set you back a score, so that isn't too bad. But if you try to grab 2x2GB sticks that'll set you back about £170 or more. So the question becomes, is the extra £70 worth a potential future upgrade path (assuming DDR2 hasn't been completely overtaken by DDR3 by the time you need more RAM, which is unlikely).

[moogle]

it's real annoying as how fast they move with it, just as ddr2 comes cheap ddr3 is here... still theres not much performance difference yet betweent the two isn't there?

[aidanjt]

it's real annoying as how fast they move with it, just as ddr2 comes cheap ddr3 is here... still theres not much performance difference yet betweent the two isn't there?

Not a huge amount, certainly not worth the huge premium, some PC2-8500 overclocked would give you the same results for much less.

[moogle]

thats what i thought
i wouldnt mind having 8gb of ddr2, even if it ages as ddr3 becomes cheap. it'll just last the system till im done with it. but yea i do lots of things in xp all at the same time so in vista it would be slower for me with my 2gb. but 2gb is adequate for most users I suppose. if you're a gamer you should be getting 2 min or over, seeing as all the latest games are munching up that ram. i mean crysis was taking 1.2gb of mine up, and with vista using 996mb last I ran it, thats all my ram gone

[dangel]

I went for 4gb purely because I needed 3gb Well i couldn't go 3gb easily so 4 was the next step up. There's plenty of games which will happily eat enough memory to justify it on Vista.

[noTHINGface]

... I went with 4Gb on the new box. Memory aint that expensive so figured it would serve me well for the next couple of years..