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Memory 8GB of RAM still not worth it?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Vimesey, 25 Jun 2011.

  1. Vimesey

    Vimesey What's a Dremel?

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    Just wondering really what people think between 4GB and 8GB of RAM, dual channel presumed, so 2x2GB or 2x4GB.

    Just wondering as it seems memory requirements raced to 4GB from a much smaller amount over a few years. But I've been using 4GB for years now, and it still seems to be the standard.

    So 8GB worth it over 4? If so what for?

    Etc. Etc.

    EDIT: I've decided to go up to 8GB, finally, just wondering what other people think about it
     
  2. thetrashcanman

    thetrashcanman Angel headed hipsters

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    i'd say 4gb is fine for most things, but ram is so cheap at the moment, its defiantly worth upgrading if you need it, or even if you just want to safeguard yourself for the future really, also its something i would always recommend to people to pick up 8gb over 4gb now if there starting building a new system from scratch and if they have the budget for it obviously, although most do seeing as 8gb kits can be had for about £70
     
  3. IvanIvanovich

    IvanIvanovich будет глотать вашу душу.

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    It's useful for large graphics projects (Photoshop & Illustrator), virtual machines... Not much else for me really.
     
  4. Bede

    Bede Minimodder

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    I think most people have to strike a balance between performance and cost. 4gb of decent RAM costs around £35 right now, 8gb costs £70. Especially on a scratch build where you are essentially shelling out the best part of a grand, £35 here and there can make all the difference. Save the money and get a sound card imho.
     
  5. Elton

    Elton Officially a Whisky Nerd

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    You know, the thing that I've noticed is that Win7 already eats up a good 1.5GB untethered. It's a bit scary, but then again, 4GB can be had relatively cheaply later on anyhow.
     
  6. Blogins

    Blogins Panda have Guns

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    I bought 4GB of a 1.5v rated kit with the intention to see how these lower rated voltage modules do. Looking at the Corsair Vengeance Arctic White 8GB kit that apparently operates at 1.35v! However the 4GB in Windows 7 has been fine whilst operating all sorts of programs at one time.
     
  7. Marvin-HHGTTG

    Marvin-HHGTTG CTRL + SHIFT + ESC

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    I recently jumped to SB, and decided to pick up 8GB RAM. Got Corsair XMS3 rated for 1333MHz CAS9 at 1.5V, so naturally whacked the voltage up to 1.65V and got them straight to 1600MHz (and will play around further). Only cost £57 off Scan. OCUK and Aria have been doing some good deals as well, though OCUK's seem quite 'localised' (IE: between 12:30 and 13:30 on two days), whereas Aria's have been sitting at £49 for a few days now - that's for some Mushkin 1333MHz stuff.

    Given how unimportant RAM speed is overall, 1333MHz stuff is fine, and it's mostly rated at 1.5V anyway, so you can always overclock with a little extra voltage and still be safe.
     
  8. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Win7 scales dynamically with the amount of memory you give it. I've got 12GB in this machine and Win takes about 1/5th of that after boot up. Once my GF opens her profile she'll take it well over half.

    Frankly I can't live without 8 any more. My work laptop with 4GB kills me daily, despite the SSD upgrade I gave it. But then again I have Outlook open all day (MASSIVE memory hog), Photoshop, and multiple programs running. If all you do is a bit of music, firefox and web email then 4 is plenty.
     
  9. RichCreedy

    RichCreedy Hey What Who

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    cant you put more memory in your lappy bindi, although the specs for mine say 4GB max, i currently have 6GB in mine, and no stability problems

    and yes the more memory the better, especially if your doing photo/video editing, obviously you need a 64bit windows for more than 4GB
     
  10. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    I'm forced to use 32-bit Windows thanks to our business policy unless I want a desktop machine :( It's good enough :)
     
  11. Polymorph83

    Polymorph83 What's a Dremel?

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    I have recently gone from 4gb to 6gb and not noticed any differences .
     
  12. Bede

    Bede Minimodder

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    I'm probably being stupid, but can you even do that? 4gb is usually dual channel and 6gb usually tri-channel. In other news I am going to bite the bullet and get 8gb XMS3 1600@1.5v because it is pretty damn cheap and ebay looks like it might save me a lot of money on a PSU :D

    edit: bollocks to that, I'm just going to get 4gb, it's not like I do much serious photoshop anyway.
     
    Last edited: 25 Jun 2011
  13. RichCreedy

    RichCreedy Hey What Who

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    you can buy 4gb and 2 gb sticks of ram, so yes you can
     
  14. jeff1155

    jeff1155 What's a Dremel?

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    Have to say I'm not a fan of tech stuff on fleaBay - it can be hard to find any intermittent or latent faults on tech stuff and without a warranty you are knackered, and the prices can be only slightly less than new if you shop around; people seem to get auction fever and go mad!
     
  15. Polymorph83

    Polymorph83 What's a Dremel?

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    Was 2gb in each channel , Now 2gb & 1gb in each channel .
     
    Last edited: 25 Jun 2011
  16. jbloggs

    jbloggs What's a Dremel?

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    Recently went with a 2500K and didn't think twice but went for 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws PC3-128000, only cost just over £70, really no point in not going with 8GB as ram prices have dropped quite considerably over the last months...
     
  17. Deders

    Deders Modder

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    What are you? some kind of masochist?
     
  18. LennyRhys

    LennyRhys Fan Fan

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    It all depends on what you use your PC for. For the vast majority of people, 4GB is ample (heck, even 3GB would be). I have 6GB on this system which I use for work (heavy batch editing of photos etc) but it never uses more than half of the available memory.

    One thing I don't think I'll ever upgrade is my memory.
     
  19. Elton

    Elton Officially a Whisky Nerd

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    I haven't run out of RAM yet. So I think i'll be fine for now. 6GB will be fine in the future I'll just nab a 2GB kit later.
     
  20. Jipa

    Jipa Avoiding the "I guess.." since 2004

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    I have 4 GB and really, really want 8 GB. I'm a heavy multi-tasker and very lazy at closing programs I don't use, so basically I just have Photoshop with dozens of photos open at the background doing absolutely nothing but eating memory..

    Anyway I just don't feel like paying for any hardware, so 4 GB it is :D
     

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