RAM - 2Gb vs 3.2Gb on XP

[FifthFreedom]

Lo,

For my new Rig I will be playing games on full GFX e.g. Crysis, Bioshock and Alone in the Dark

Will having 3.2Gb of Ram make a noticeable difference to my FPS on games like that?

Some of you guys have fancy rigs, how much RAM are you running with?

Thanks,

FifthFreedom

EDIT: I added a poll for lolz..

100th POST!

[staffsMike]

I'm pretty sure there was something on hexus this week about 4gb making a noteable difference in games

Corsair did it, but I'm sure they wouldn't lie to use... right?

[SiM]

2GB is fine for todays stuff. but for heavy multitasking and future use, 4gb is better even if you can only see 3gb of it

[shaithis]

Well, the games themselves (unless 64 bit) will only address 2 GB of RAM but I think most of those games would eat up 2GB if it was free. So personally, I would go with the 3GB+ option which would allow them to take as much RAM as they want.

I would expect there to be a performance difference between 2 and 3GB, albeit not a huge one.

[kalniel]

2gb is all you need on XP. Telling windows to shuffle itself into the last gb of the virtual address space can still help avoid crashes when large address aware programs temporarily breach the 2gb limit, but they only seem to do that on loading so just having a page file is enough really.

[FifthFreedom]

So can I have 3 x 1Gb Sticks?

I have only ever used matching pairs in my Mobos far.

Also is the 800Mhz to 1066Mhz a jump worth making if I'm only trying to jump my Q6600 up to 3.2?

As it cost twice as much nearly..

[staffsMike]

Nope PC6400 is enough to run a Q6600 at 3.6GHz and there is nothing wrong with running 3x1GB sticks but it probably mores more sense to just buy 4GB while it's still cheap.

[Noxvayl]

I recently moved from 2Gb to 4Gb with Vista 64bit and to be 100% honest I haven't even noticed any extra FPS in any of my games from the move. It doesn't allow the game to run faster it just allows whatever else is running on the PC to run without disruption from the game and the biggest thing noticeable is alt+tabing out of games. Alt+tab is super quick with more memory and is honestly the only thing I have noticed as a user to be beneficial from 4Gb.

Other then that Vista has migrated from using approximately 800Mb of memory to now using 1500Mb of memory and it is noticeably faster to navigate windows but gaming hasn't proved any better than before. I'm waiting on the supposed memory intensive games to come so that my move can be properly justified because at the moment I'm clutching at straws.

For 32bit XP it would be even less plausible because XP doesn't use memory as well as Vista so getting more wouldn't mean XP uses more to become more effective. Its already using its maximum so is working at its optimum without the extra memory.

[FifthFreedom]

So these critters right here should do me?

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

[staffsMike]

Perfic They have looser timings than some but Intel chips really don't notice the difference.

[moogle]

Perfic They have looser timings than some but Intel chips really don't notice the difference.

yep

Benchmark Results - Tom's Hardware : Hardcore DDR2 RAM by Corsair, G.Skill, OCZ and Patriot

the fps diff is less than 1 on games with 1066 1244 and 800 speeds.

it's nice to have that 1.2gb of ram to run more things at once

[Will404]

I have two gig, and core2duo, and my computer is really slow, i would defonatally go for 4 gig.

[SiM]

I have two gig, and core2duo, and my computer is really slow, i would defonatally go for 4 gig.

Erm... that is terrible reasoning/deduction... your PC could be slow because of loads of other things. I am using 2gb ram on my c2d laptop with vista premium x64 and its pretty fast.

[moogle]

Erm... that is terrible reasoning/deduction... your PC could be slow because of loads of other things. I am using 2gb ram on my c2d laptop with vista premium x64 and its pretty fast.

probably alot of startup programs running

[MSIC]

I have two gig, and core2duo, and my computer is really slow, i would defonatally go for 4 gig.

I have a really fast car, but in heavy city traffic it only goes 5 miles per hour.
Do i need a bigger engine?

[moogle]

I have a really fast car, but in heavy city traffic it only goes 5 miles per hour.
Do i need a bigger engine?

You need a chopper
and a helipad