8GB vs 4GB in Vista 64bit?

Space Monkey

Space Monkey

Space Monkey

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Hi all,

After reading up in a few places its very apparent that Vista 64 is a hogger of ram resources, so to my question....Should I get 8GB of ram or stick to 4GB?

I have these at the moment : Crucial Ballistix Tracers..... I have 2 sets of these (total 4x1GB)

But am considering 2 sets of these (total 4x2GB): G-Skill PQ PC2-8000

Am I right that in Vista 64bit that even though I may have 4gig it'll be as effective as someone on 32bit Vista with 2gig?

Thanks for any help you can give.

PS. The ram I have isnt opened yet so can easily be sold.


Peace :D
 
Xp 32bit needs only 2gb. 4gb in Vsta 64 I'm sure will be fine :eek: The only time you would need 8gb is if you were doing a lot of memory intensive things, like modelling with millions of polygons or having a lot of large photoshop projects.
 
SebC said:
Xp 32bit needs only 2gb. 4gb in Vsta 64 I'm sure will be fine :eek: The only time you would need 8gb is if you were doing a lot of memory intensive things, like modelling with millions of polygons or having a lot of large photoshop projects.
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With games, usage goes over 4gb a lot. Right now I am at 4.2gb usage :)

I'd rather have 8gb of "slower" RAM than 4gb 1066mhz RAM (which is what I had).
 
If you are noticing the machine slowing down or annoying you then get more RAM, but if you are happy as it is, wait, as it will only get cheaper..
 
edgedemon said:
If you are noticing the machine slowing down or annoying you then get more RAM, but if you are happy as it is, wait, as it will only get cheaper..
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I am in the middle of getting new parts for a new build, so I havent had chance to test yet. I am trying to find out what is the best option now before I get all the parts.

The build needs to last me a least a couple of years.

Peace :)
 
D.M said:
After reading up in a few places its very apparent that Vista 64 is a hogger of ram resources
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Hello D.M, that simply isn't true, certainly not in the way you are interpreting it. :)

Windows Vista uses more resources than Windows XP but you have to also take into account that Windows XP is now 6 years old.

D.M said:
so to my question....Should I get 8GB of ram or stick to 4GB?
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What do you use your system for and what sort of programs do you run?

------------------------------------------------------

Hello rafster, running which programs exactly? :)
 
Fire Wizard said:
Hello rafster, running which programs exactly? :)
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At the moment, a lot of instances of IE, Altbiz, Word, Acrobat Professional, mIRC, Outlook, Symantec Endpoint, Media Player 11, iTunes, Steam and loads of other processes. I noticed with 8gb games load faster, and I said in a previous thread the caching is quality, I could play Crysis, and when I play it in 30 mins time or so, it will have still cached a lot so the loading is fast.

I do notice a difference with 8gb, but the difference is not as big as 2->4gb.

For the same price, you can get 2 decent 2x1gb PC2-8500 kits for 4gb or 2 2x2gb PC2-6400 kits for 8gb. The 8gb far outweighs the 4gb I had at 1066mhz previous. As someone who does not care about how fast my PC calculates Pi, how many FPS to 10000 decimal places I get or 3d Marks, I do not notice a difference between 800mhz and 1066mhz personally.
 
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rafster said:
With games, usage goes over 4gb a lot. Right now I am at 4.2gb usage :)

I'd rather have 8gb of "slower" RAM than 4gb 1066mhz RAM (which is what I had).
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Thats because you have gave Windows 8GB so it will use more, thats how it has always been.

You say you hit 4.2GB in games now, try it with 4GB and you will see some left over.

Right now 8GB is only needed for Video/Photo work, for General use/Gaming its totally overkill.
 
helmutcheese said:
Thats because you have gave Windows 8GB so it will use more, thats how it has always been.

You say you hit 4.2GB in games now, try it with 4GB and you will see some left over.

Right now 8GB is only needed for Video/Photo work, for General use/Gaming its totally overkill.
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That's not cached, at the moment the system has cached 5.5gb :). Also, if 4x2gb (See the OCZ Platinum pack) is the same price more or less as 4x1gb of decent PC2-8500, then why not? Also the prefetching is ace and it definately makes a difference..

I am happy with 8gb and glad I went for it, I would not say it's overkill when you factor the above in and the cost of DDR2 at the moment...
 
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I'd be interested in this also as I've got 2GB and vista is slow. I do a lot of Virtual pc etc and then odd COD4 gaming. With prices soo cheap then why not....

Just a shame my laptop RAM for HP kit isn't so cheap :(
 
I've got 8Gb of the G.Skill PC8000 and the increase is measureable in terms of shortened loading times, but actual program execution seems largely unaffected.
 
I can get 2 of the G.Skill PC2-8000 kits for a decent price so as I'll only be buliding every 2 years or so I really wanted to get the best I can now.

So is the general experience of Vista's handling of memory good?

[edit] Also is PC2-6400 8gb better than PC2-8500 4gb?
 
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rafster said:
That's not cached, at the moment the system has cached 5.5gb :). Also, if 4x2gb (See the OCZ Platinum pack) is the same price more or less as 4x1gb of decent PC2-8500, then why not? Also the prefetching is ace and it definately makes a difference..

I am happy with 8gb and glad I went for it, I would not say it's overkill when you factor the above in and the cost of DDR2 at the moment...
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I never said it was Cached, simply fact is you still dont need 8GB (if you want to run it thats your choice) for your usage.

The more Memory you give Windows the more it will use, you would find that out if you tried 4GB and it would have some left over.

Give it 8GB it will use more than 4GB obv.
 
helmutcheese said:
I never said it was Cached, simply fact is you still dont need 8GB (if you want to run it thats your choice) for your usage.
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My usage weekly makes great use of it actually (work related)...what I am running now is not work related being Sunday and all :)

Edit: When I had 4gb, I easily could max out the memory.
 
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D.M said:
[edit] Also is PC2-6400 8gb better than PC2-8500 4gb?
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I personally prefer the memory size than the speed between these. When I initially went from 4x1gb PC2-8500 to 2x2gb PC2-6400. I did not notice a difference. Unless you prefer to run benchmarks, where you may notice a tiny difference, but I play games and prefer to use my PC for work stuff than the work laptop, not stare at FPS counters or calculate pi.

True, many people may not notice a difference, but as a person who likes to run loads of programs at once without closing them (especially when running work related tasks) and the prices now, then why not?
 
2gb is sufficient, 4gb is preferable, 8gb is purely unnecessary at the moment unless you are editing very large video/photo stuff.
 
gurusan said:
2gb is sufficient, 4gb is preferable, 8gb is purely unnecessary at the moment unless you are editing very large video/photo stuff.
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There's more things you can do than edit photos and videos with that RAM by the way, everyone seems to think that's the only reason you need loads of RAM....
 
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