8GB..

Adrianr

Adrianr

Adrianr

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Joined
3 Feb 2008
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So i'm running 4GB at the moment in 2 x 2GB sticks, OC'd to 1063 Cas5, Q6600 @ 425 x 8.

Im toying with the idea of throwing in another 4GB of the same (Black Dragon) and have heard numerous "It'l put strain on the memory controller" things from research.

Inshort, what would that realistically do if i put 8Gb in? It supports it, so surely it's not that doom and gloom. I'm guessing i wouldn't be able to keep my current RAM clock, but was hoping it would still run 1:1 @ 850mhz?

My northbridge heatsink is quite hot at the moment, so will aftermarket cooling of some description be a requirement?

Mobo is an Asus P5k-E Wifi AP.
 
crazyDAJT said:
good idea to bump up the north bridge volts, may mean you have to rain in your OC, but 3.4Ghz isn't that high. you wont know until you get the ram in.

EDIT: do you actually use all your 4GB of mem, or can you programmes support it??
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Is that essentially all putting strain on the memory controller is then? And just upping the NB volts alleviates the problem (At the disadvantage of more heat of course)?

I have ran into the 4GB wall a few times. Photoshop although only allowed 3.2GB itself, can use any extra ram you have as a scratch disk before resorting to the HD. Which is much much faster. Doesn't happen ALL the time of course, but for the price of DDR2 now the inclusion of another 4GB doesn't seem like a huge deal.
 
Q6600 @ 3.4
4GB Geil Black Dragon PC6400
8800GT 512
250GB WD 16mb HD
Asus P5K-E Wifi
OCZ 600W StealthXStream PSU
Optiarc DVD-RW
Freezer 7 pro
All in a Coolermaster Elite 330.

*Sticks head inside case*

I think that's about it :)
 
Well i figured there would be some nay-sayers, so you'll just have to believe me that 8GB would be a good system upgrade for me, even though it may not be for you :) I could spend it on more HD space, but i have loads. I have an 8800GT which flies through everything i play, and i already dont have time to play the games i have.

I'm not just populating the slots because i can. I've already said i run into the 4GB wall, this topic was to ask if i were to put in 8GB what problems would i encounter.

Seems the main problem i would encounter is a load of people telling me i don't need 8GB of ram!

Cheers for the help folks :)
 
WJA96 said:
I'm pretty sure you are.

What application?

I've had 8Gb of PC8000 RAM in a stressed machine running pretty much every application I can lay my hands on, including 8 copies of Virtual PC, and it was no faster than 4Gb. I promise you, you're only looking at it because it looks cheap. If it was £500 to upgrade you would not be considering it.

What about an 8Gb SLC SATA SSD for £85 instead? That will actually speed your system up if you use it for your OS drive.
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Well thankyou for calling me a liar! If you'de read the thread i've already stated what application. If it was £500 i wouldn't be looking at it, so whats your point? Because it's cheap it's a worthless upgrade? Do i have to video my computer running into the 4GB wall and slowing down as it writes to the HD to persuade you or something? Sure i could put up with it being slightly slower when this happens, but then i may aswell put up with a slower CPU, slower hardrive.. slower graphics card..

The ram is the best way to speed up Photoshop. I could put in a Raid0 scratchdisk, but not only would it be slower, it would be more expensive.

My questions were the implementation of 8GB of ram, and what it would do to my motherboard. It seems it wouldn't do a great deal to my motherboard, apart from maybe having to up the NB volts with some extra cooling. So AFAIC, thread has served it purpose, job done :)
 
WJA96 said:
I didn't call you a liar, if I wanted to call you a liar I'd have used the word. What I think you are is mistaken. Mistaken in your belief that an extra 4Gb of RAM will speed up your system.
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"I'm not just populating the slots because i can"

"I'm pretty sure you are"

You read that in a different way than calling me a liar? Fair enough. It sounded pretty insinuated from where im sat.

WJA96 said:
You said something about Photo-ee-things, which isn't an application that I'm aware of.
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And 2 posts down i mentioned about Photoshop. Alright i didn't expressly say "I use photoshop, thats why i need more ram", but i thought it was pretty obvious from the way the sentence was written.


WJA96 said:
Almost. Just being cheap doesn't make it worthless, but even though people who have TRIED IT tell you it's pointless you're still prepared to do it because you're convinced it's RAM. It's worthless because it's not worth doing. Pointless.
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Seems the only people who have told me it's pointless are those who have noticed no speedup in their own systems using 8Gb. Which none of them have said they're using Photoshop to edit large files that run into the 4GB wall. You only mentioned you use photoshop yourself afterwards. Said it initially your advice would have had some more weight.


WJA96 said:
If it's photoshop then it doesn't speed up under 64 bit Vista with 8Gb RAM over 4Gb RAM. I have tested this to death and the only way I could get ANY performance improvement was to run a DDR RAM iDrive or with an SSD as OS disk.
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That's fine, why didn't you say that? If it really doesn't, then i won't consider the upgrade. You simply said it was pointless.. :rolleyes:

WJA96 said:
I disagree.
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Fine, why? Surely the read/write times of RAM are far faster than a 2 disk Raid0 array? If you know something i don't please share. I'm trying to make this a fast photoshop machine that wont slow down at the odd large file. From research it seems far and away the best thing to do is add more ram!


WJA96 said:
I answered that question, as I suspect I'm one of the very few people to have the exact same combination, and to have actually tested it with 8Gb of GeIL RAM. You don't need to adjust anything if you're already running 2 sticks. Just put the extra 2 sticks in and it'll be fine.

Your self-denial on this is understandable, as you've convinced yourself that your machine only writes to disk because it's run out of RAM. OK. Try it, expand your RAM by all means. And if you open up to the concept of taking advice from someone who has experience of what you are trying to do, then you might actually get the point. Some of us are actually trying to help by advising, as well as answer yes/no questions.

I'm the last person to beat anyone over the head for spending money on an upgrade, but I would just say I've actually tried it, and it didn't help with Photoshop manipulation speeds for me.
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There is no self denial. You have created a debate out of something i didn't even ask in the first place. I wanted to know what it would do to my motherboard, not whether i actually needed it. Consider this thread 'forum-fied'.
 
WJA96: I appreciate your apology, and i must also apologise myself for going a little off the rails when reading the "populate the slots" comment! It did seem a little offensive, but as you have explained it was not intended, that's fair game.

Indeed it would be nice to meet up and bench various configurations to find the best and most cost effective for performance. I'de certainly be game :) I'm genuinely interested on how to make CS3 run as quick as possible. I could RAID0 up two more 250Gb drives for about £20 more, you think this would give a larger performance boost than 4GB more ram? (Unfortunately raptor raid is off the charts due to cost)

Like i say, any research i've done so far has pointed to throwing as much RAM as you possibly can at it. Although CS3 is limited to 3.25GB, it can use 2GB more as a scratchdisk cache, not to mention having the other 2.85GB to run anything else along with it (namely bridge or similar). Under normal files photoshop efficiency is at 100%, but i have had this down to 60-70, the area at which Adobe reccommend getting more ram.
 
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