>4GB ram? Why?

NeilF

NeilF

NeilF

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OK, my 5yr old machine has 4GB in it... To this day I don't think I've ever seen it more than about 70-80% full... and is typically less than that.

That said, I'm not a huge gamer, but I've got a number of recent titles etc so I have played modern (bigger) games. eg: Max Payne 3.

So people with 8GB of 16GB, surely most of it is sitting there unused? Or am I missing something? If I've yet to use anywhere near 4GB how have people made use of 8GB or 16GB?
 
The_Baron said:
Memory is inexpensive. Suspect the imminent next gen console releases will move the ball forward in terms of minimum requirements too.
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Maybe... But at the moment? And last few years?


I recall 4-5yrs ago when I built my machine, it wasn't unusual for folks to put more than 4GB of memory in a PC.

If in 5yrs I've typically used 3GB or less, then what would 8GB of memory have given you with over half of it never used?


I'm just surprised that even now, my 4GB is never close to being filled by modern titles?
 
Simon42 said:
It all depends on what you use your PC for. For example my PCs/laptops have 24GB or 32gb and I use all of it running multiple VMs so my next machine will have 64GB.

There's no point in buying more than you need, but for some tasks (VMs, rendering etc) you need a lot! For general use I think 8GB is a good figure these days although many people won't see much benefit compared to 4GB.
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Oh, for specialist use all bets are off :)

But it seems at the moment 4GB is more than enough for all general and gaming requirements. 8GB is fine for future proofing - but nothing is utilising it at the moment!?
 
andybird123 said:
ignore my post then :D

with everything loaded and something like Crysis 3 on max settings I see close to 8GB of RAM being used
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Really? I'm confused then...

Tell you what, I've just coincidentally upgraded from 4GB to 6GB as I got the extra memory for £10, so (tomorrow) I'll load up Max Payne 3 to see if I still use less than 4GB?

But maybe Crysis 3 uses more ram then if it's available?
 
OK, with my 6GB of ram...

Max Payne 3, approx 50% in use.
Bioshock, 44% in use.
Borderlands 2, 45% in use.
WArgame: Airland Battle, 40% in use.


I can't get anything using even close to 4GB (66%) yet, alone more!
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Since upgrading to 16GB, i have safely turned off Paging without any problem. When using 8 GB i certainly ran into a few BSODs. Not that paging is a massive drain but it saves some IO to the SSD.
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Is this why I can hardly get above 3GB usage of my 6GB? Because windows (Vista64) is doing something odd?
 
Well, I've gone from 4gb to 6gb and see little/no difference. Games for example never seem to take it beyond about 40-50% memory usage.

The only way I can get huge usage is to use Photoshop and open lots of images.
 
medseven said:
Ws asking myself this very question yesterday and this morning, and have just been browsing around for some nice 8gb kits...

But up until now I have been running on 4gb on this games machine... playing at types of games often with browser running in the back with some tabs open, skype, steam or origin and not much else...

Has been running fine and dandy... Yesterday playing Battlefield 4 I drop from a smooth 60fps and my computer basically locks down... 1-15 fps all over the place im like wtf.

Turns out my Ram was 100% used and it was using virtual memory or something on the SSD.

So Im assuming just like games are pushing towards and soon past 2gb on the VRAM at 1080p its right about now you will also be pushing past 4gb on the system ram!
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Well, I've got 6GB now, so I'm hoping that takes me well into next year. At the moment my 5yr old Q6600 and 5month old 7870 seems to handle most things well... So I'm hoping to put off any major upgrade for as long as possible!
 
ttaskmaster said:
If cost is the only factor, fair enough, but the Q6600 really is starting to fall behind the times.
I only have an HD6950, but that is enough to handle most games on high settings. The 4GB DDR2 and the Q6600 are the main elements holding everything back. Even overclocking stuff wouldn't do that much.
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Well, my Q6600 (now with 6GB of ram) with my 7870 XT basically runs everything I throw at it fine. The longer I can put off an upgrade the better the next system will be, and the longer it will be till all the hassle of the migration.
 
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