Am looking to buy a new rig based on a core 2 duo or quad core at the moment - looking at memory (DDR2) it seems that there are more and more 4Gb kits advertised - anybody using them? Do you see any improvement over 2Gb? I'm going to be using Vista home and i hear that it can only address 3Gb so my question would be are there any advantages in having 3Gb over 2Gb system ram in vista. The choices seem to be Geil 4Gb kit with a CAS of 5-5-5-15 or a Corsair 2Gb kit with CAS 4-4-4-12 - does it still ring true that you can never have too much RAM??
Get 4Gb of RAM and Vista Home Premium x64, so you can access all of it. Going 32-bit is a waste of time IMO.
There is nothing wrong with using 3gb of ram, however if you did go for 3gb I would advise using 2x 1gb and 2x 512mb sticks, so that the ram may still run in Dual Channel mode giving you 6.4gbit? memory bandwidth instead of 3.2gbit? when in single channel. If you go for more than 3gb of ram use a 64bit OS I use 4gb of the Corsair CAS 4-4-4-12 with Vista Ultimate 64bit. "Does it still ring true that you can never have too much RAM??" - pritty much, but within reason, if your likely to use lot of applications or applications that use a lot fo ram such as picture/video editing, virtual machines, VSTi's or games then 4gb is a good size specialy if using vista 64bit.
well, i had 2*1GB corsair 333mhz cl4, now i bought another two gigs. The ram is fantastic, running 4GB @ 453mhz cl4 Vista Ultimate 32b, im seeing 3.6GB of it
there's no such thing as having too much RAM, 4GB is really the way to go now, even if i only play games, i still find 4GB feels faster than 2GB. yes, on 32bit, seeing 3GB RAM is normal, you'd need 64bit to be able to address all of it
Just ordered a 4GB kit for about $75. RAM is so damn cheap right now that there's really no reason not to pack in 4GB. TBH I'd do 8 gigs if my laptop had the physical space for it (yay for leopard being 64-bit). I expect the difference on a desktop won't be quite as much as on a laptop since the laptops have the slower hard drives, but I'll let you know in a couple days.
all my systems are running with 4GB regardless of 32/64bit. purchasing the same brand, class and model of RAM, but at different period can often mean mixing different ICs. using all the same stick to avoid incompatibility and maximizing OC potential. many RAM instability at high speed (or being OCed) cannot be detected by Memtest86. Some chipsets support asymmetric dual-channel, meaning you could have 3/4 RAM and still operate in dual-channel mode. I'm on AMD, it's a symmetrical dual-channel design, so used 4 DIMMs for slightly better performance and 64bit scalability.
well i went to 4gb ram last month, basically in win xp 32bit, i was able to run everyting i needed, including games with 2gb, photo editing slowed a bit, but i lernt how to use it with 2gb. and you dont use it that much. ive had vista 64 for a year now, and only recently has it become my main OS for gamming and photo editiing, where 2gb just isnt enough, but 4gb rocks!! so if your running vista, 4gb is a must especially if your 64 bit, for 32bit xp, not a must , but worth it considering the current price! consider 2 * 2gb sticks if your MB chipset is week with all for slots filled!
Vista 64 can use up to 1.5 gb of memory I've found, and with gaming I've hit 3.4 gb usage. So I think 4gb can be considered worth while. Right now I'm waiting for some companies to get back from vacation so I can get new CAD/FEM software that have Vista support so I can see how they perform.
It is okay to buy 2x1GB sticks at any time as long as you can match their internals, some revisions of the ram labeled the same will use different chips. One example is Corsair Dominator PC2-6400, it originally had Micron D9GMH(great overclockers) but is now using ProMOS chips, which are meh for overclocking really. Try looking at this list: http://ramlist.ath.cx/ddr2/ Any of the green chips are those you want, the red ones aren't made, so if it only has red shown for it, you won't get those, which is too bad as they were great overclockers too. Buying two sets at once you should be safe for getting the same internals.
If you are running Vista 64 4GB would probably be the best option. It seems like vista uses more ram if you have more of it. It bakes thing a bit faster. Running XP 32 with 4GB is a waste.
I upgraded my laptop to 4gb from 1gb over xmas, simply because the 4gb kit was £10 more than the 2gb! It's a mighty improvement, I opened every app I have on the laptop (including every MS office program in both 2003 and 2007 versions) and it still ran smoothly. Nice. Only 3.25gb seen by the system though.
I built my computer with 2 GB to start with, and upgraded to 4 GB (4x1GB, not 2x2), and I honestly didn't notice much difference until I installed Adobe CS3 (Got it free, since my mom's a graphics design teacher and she already had a copy). Honestly, you may never be able to distinguish the benefits, but there's really no reason not to, since RAM's dirt cheap and eventually you'll be glad you bought the extra anyway.
So it seems that the consensus is to get 4Gb no matter what system - even if it doesnt make full use of it. It seems that 4Gb kits aren't too much more than 2Gb kits as well. So 4Gb for Vista then - even though i'm only using the 32bit version, damned if i'm going to pay for another version of windows so i can use the remaining 0.5 or 0.75 gig!!
I used 4GB last year in WinXP x64 before splitting it to a second machine. I'm not going to needlessly praise it, but it vastly helped when working with very dense, ultra-high resolution Photoshop documents (ie: 6500x5000x80 layers). So there was a productivity advantage, not just sitting on my desktop doing jack with 4GB.
To be honest with u the advantage is definite. But u see, the performance between 1Gb to 2 GB is almost double and between 2 GB and 4 GB is not much. U can say that almost 20% gain even in gaming! But its good to go for 4GB coz u can use lot of RAM in gaming!
@BBQofDoom-- I'm using Vista 64 with 4GB, and I wouldn't say it screams. It puts along quite nicely, but it's still slower than it could be. Then again, my definition of fast is along the lines of Xubuntu or Gentoo.
