Windows 2 gigs of RAM really worth it?

I just upgraded my system to a Geforce 7900GT and an AMD 4200+ processor. I currently have 1 gig of ram (2x256, 1x512). I know, having a matched pair would be ideal, but it's hard to justify throwing out old RAM that still works. My question is would I benifit from adding a 1 gig stick and taking it to 2 gigs of RAM? Judging from the bechmarks, I thought I'd be able to pretty much game at 1280x1024 with everything cranked up without a hitch, but i've notices some stuttering and pausing during games when I crank the settings up. I can hear the hard drive working during these stutters.

 

What games are you playing? Games like FEAR, Oblivion and Battlefield 2 benefit a lot from 2Gb.

You should probably go for 2Gb of RAM. I would sell your current RAM and buy a nice 2Gb kit.

 

The real benefit comes in when you have anitvirus, firewalls, MSN, xfire etc running in the background hogging up the resources. In those situations (particularly that you have a dual core), it would be wise to get the extra memory to keep them apps running without affecting your FPS.

 

That's what I was afraid of . Yeah, the games I'm playing now are Fear, Battlefield 2, Half-Life 2 , and Half-Life 2 EP 1

 

Most effected will be BF2, as it eats ram for breakfast, the others wont as much but BF2 deffo.

 

Yep I'd go with the others and say you should get 2Gb of RAM. From a bit-tech article a while back, they tested to see the improvement, and unless you really want to get the absolute best out of your system then I'd save some money and keep the RAM you already have. The tests showed that in real world gaming, having memory in dual channel didn't have a huge increase on performance compared to the performance difference between 1Gb dual channel and an upgrade to 2Gb not in dual channel.

I personally would get a 2Gb kit though if I had nothing better to send the money on.

 

BF2 really needs 2gb to run ultra smooth, but it doesn't stop the bugs...

To be honest it will give you a performance increase but worth the money that it will cost you to upgrade? I'm not so sure. Remember if you buy 2GB of RAM now but next year decide to upgrade to DDR2 (new motherboard), you will have to sell it all again.

I have 2GB of RAM, but for the cost of it I don't believe it is worth it (for you, because you have to sell your current RAM, for a new system maybe), but if you have money burning a hole in your pocket why not?

 

I would say go 2gb for sure, as you have just upgraded you will get plenty of use out of it and it has been very good help with gaming on my PC. FEAR/BF2 practically require 1.5gb+ to eliminate all stuttering and theres been plenty of tests to show that 2gb is getting more and more neccary. Of course you can live without it, but thats just the same as i could have a 7600gt rather then a 7800gt for alot less, but i choose the better, just to be sure it was good enoigh for me (bad example seen as 7600gt has only just come out recently, but you get the point )

 

Think of the pain I have playing Battlefield on low settings, 800x600 resolution, reduced visibility to 78% with 512mb of ram.

 

Speaking of 2GB of RAM. I just upgraded to a dual-core AMD 4800, matched pair Corsair XMS, 7950GT, and a Thermaltake 700W PSU.

I was running a 7800GT with 1GB of RAM, and a 4400 single core. I tested out just upgrading from 1GB to 2GB and the difference was night and day in EQ2, COD2, WoW and Fable: TLC. No more stuttering and almost no hangs.

Speaking of Shuttle, the 250W PSUs they have in those boxes CAN NOT run anything more than office applications. I don't care what they say. I have not been able to run anything close to a new game more than 15 min without a crash b/c of those tiny PSUs they put in them. My new Thermaltake 700W PSU has no problems at all.

 

I was pretty much running a Shuttle 250w at it's maximum;
Athlon XP3200
1Gb RAM
6800GT
x2 HDD's (80Gb IDE, 200Gb SATA)
TV card
DVD-RW

...which ran fine, absolutely no problems.
I changed the 80Gb drive a while back and replaced it with a 400Gb SATA, which seemed to take the PSU over the edge. Bog-standard Windows applications are fine, but yeah, games crash after just a few minutes...

Back on topic, if you can afford 2Gb then go for it. At the end of the day, you're making your PC more future-proof, which can only be a good thing.

 

I have 2GB currently and when I was running my system active (Before current modding) I loved being able to run Oblivion at pretty high graphic settings, swtich between games and windows, dling files, running multiple IMs (Before I started using Trillian).

Big difference coming from 1GB of RAM.

 

Have had 2 gig of ram in my PC for a few weeks now, it really does make a big differecne especially if your on a dual core chip, makes the whole system feel so much more smoother, games load more quickly too and BF2 is as smooth as silk

 

Yeah dude go for it I my self will be upgrading my ram to 2 gigs.

 

I'm running 1gig of RAM at the mo, but when I upgrade to the Core 2 duo (start of next year as the price is gonna plummet), I'll upgrade to either 2gig or 4gig as the cost won't really matter too much for me. But a friend has same processer and mobo as me at the moment, but has 2gig o RAM, and you do notice the differnce, especially on games and video editing/converting.

 

I have patriot 2gb ram, but thinking about getting additional gb of ram. do you think thats worth it??

 

This might help you: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/02/15/memory_-_is_more_always_better/1.html

 

The question in this day and age is not should you get 2 gig of RAM, but should you be happy to only have 2 gig? I've had 2 gig of RAM for years (I'm a big Planetside fan, and Planetside wubbed it) and now I've made the step up to 4 gig in preparation for the bloatfest that is Vista. I'd say 2 gig is an absolute bare minimum these days, especially since RAM is pretty cheap.

 

Not that cheap. It's double what it was this time last year

 

I have found that having 2 gigs of RAM has helped alot in many areas. Loading programs, games, etc.

You will find that most of the newer games run alot better on 2gigs as opposed to the 1gb standard.