With 16GB of RAM, Can I afford to run windows with no pagefile?

TheJamsh

TheJamsh

TheJamsh

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I've just read the thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17180569 from 'baddass', and would like to have an up-to-date version of it really?

I'm not entirely sure what page file is for, but I'm assuming it's like a much slower form of RAM? Possibly for older PC's that didn't have high enough specifications in their actual memory hardware to be able to run programs effectively.

My new far more modern PC is to be specced with 16GB of DDR3 1600Mhz RAM. Can I afford to disable the page file? What effects would it have on my system? I assume windows would perform faster or something?

EDIT: Also, my Windows 7 64-bit will be installed to a Solid-State 64GB drive. Not sure if that makes a difference with page filing.
 
Ohh the fun of the arguments that will entail below for this question.

A few months back when I was reading up on this, I found a superb review a chap had done with every variable and into extreme detail about this.

Overall outcome? Absolutely no difference with Pagefile on or off. Or at least so minimal that your'll not notice the difference with this sort of spec.

Personally, I run a RAMDISK of 4gb and have all the temps and page going to that.
 
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So Page File is for temporary windows data am I right? Shortcuts, temp files, that sort of thing? I guess storing to RAM is a waste...

So you have a HDD partition, and all your page data is stored there?
 
Generally speaking, as above I would have said there is little to no point in switching it off, and you are more likely to do harm than good by doing so. A page file will only be used really when you don't have enough available RAM anyway so if your 16GB is truly enough, you won't notice a difference one way or another
 
I have 16gb ram, when I first installed windows on my 60gb ssd, windows allocated something like 25gb to pagefile, so naturally I wouldn't advise you let windows allocate it . I bumped it down to 2gb just to be safe
 
Cool thanks for the tips. Once it's all installed and ready, updated etc. I'll check the settings. 25GB of Page File on an SSD is a huge waste of expensive space IMO!
 
Read this article
http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/#more-3417

This guy is the "go to" guy for me when Im re-installing, setting up or tweaking anything to do with windows.

Ran w7 with out a pagefile for 11 months - zero problems.
Not some random blog posts from around the web, this guy DID it.

For me, I run W7 with 16gb and NO pagefile.
Works machine, use Autocad, Photoshop, Lightwave, Z-Brush, Pro-Engineer with no issues.

Got 16GB?
Switch pagefile off and forget about it :)
 
As far as I understand a few applications do use it... (such as say Photoshop with huge images) but for the most part you can.

I personally leave mine turned on however,
 
Ive got 16gb too and windows set the pagefile at 16gb aswell, so I altered it to 4gb, as windows might throw its toys out of the pram if disabled. Plus its not like Im going to miss 4gb on my 90gb ssd as its not even half full yet.

image1cfm.jpg
 
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A point which never gets discussed is what happens if you're not running a pagefile and you do manage to use up all your physical RAM.

Without the backing of the pagefile, the next application to try to allocate more memory won't be able to do so. Doesn't that mean that the application would just crash? That's an important reliability point if so.
 
Yes and Windows will pop up a message saying there's no more memory left.

Fire Wizard has posted about this in detail and we've been discussing it in the Pagefile thread only a few weeks ago.

Pagefile is always used regardless of how much RAM you have. It's just up to you to monitor how much your workflow requires and then manually set the PF accordingly if you're on an SSD and need the space that a pagefile would otherwise consume if left system managed and you had a large amount of RAM (16GB in this case).

pagefile2012.jpg

That's mine after 8 days of uptime, after gaming/photo editing, video encoding and web browsing/file transferring and movie watching on each day.
Notice the amount of Pagefile being used. I've yet to see it exceed 30% on a heavy session based on my usage over several average days based on a 1GB pagefile so have set mine accordingly now.
 
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