Anyone use 8GB (4x 2GB)?

Scougar

Scougar

Scougar

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Just wondering how many people are using Vista 64bit (or possibly xp 64-bit) and using 8Gb in their machines?

Does it make a difference in any games or general O/S usage compared to 4Gb? (Especially in Vista 64)

How has it effected overclocking of your machine?

Matthew
 
No differences I noticed really. I have 2 2x2gb Platinum kits I tried, but it made no difference that I could really notice to be worth it, so put another kit in my other PC.

Edit: Did not affect overclocking, I just keep the ram at/around stock speeds. There is some software I did use which it made a wee bit difference but not as massive as the difference between 2gb and 4gb. MCH temps go up as well.
 
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well basically no programmes will use that much RAM will they?

and that'd be putting a lot of stresss on your memory controller wouldn't it =o
 
Ben M said:
well basically no programmes will use that much RAM will they?

and that'd be putting a lot of stresss on your memory controller wouldn't it =o
Click to expand...

It does help a little if you have a ton of memory hungry programs open, but I have not seen a program use a significant amount to be honest. I think it is good if you have a lot of CS3 programs open and use a bit of Virtualisation. It will strain the chipset, and you may need to slacken timings, increase MCH volts and forget about any overclocking on RAM. I just put it in another PC I had for now, but I did get my sets of Reapers I RMA'd back so might just put it back in my main rig...

I think overall though in many cases the difference is not worth it, but if you have the money/think you will use a lot of RAM in the future, why not ;)
 
Well that's what I'm asking, does it make a difference in games such as Crysis that are on the cutting edge of 'pushing memory requirements'.

Concerned that people are saying more memory 'strains' the chipset. They are made to support that amount of memory so this should be well within specification?

Matthew
 
Scougar said:
Well that's what I'm asking, does it make a difference in games such as Crysis that are on the cutting edge of 'pushing memory requirements'.

Concerned that people are saying more memory 'strains' the chipset. They are made to support that amount of memory so this should be well within specification?

Matthew
Click to expand...

There's overkill and there's overkill. Since XP is still stuck at 2-3GB, most games including Crysis are designed with that in mind.

4GB is overkill for the average gamer atm. Many of us got 4GB purely becuase it's future proof and cheap atm.

If you use seriuosly memory intensive apps like 3dMax, it's certainly worth looking into.

For Crysis, it's an absolute waste. Upgrade your CPU or video card instead.
 
Unless you have 64 bit apps 8GB is overkill.

I've not managed to use more than about 5.5 - 6Gb of mine. Photoshop will only use about 1.8Gb before it starts to shift stuff to the scratch disk. Google Earth will use a 2Gb memory cache if you want but becomes very unstable. I think I managed to get Lightroom to use a gig or so but even that was a struggle.
 
I've just put one of my 2x2gb sets back in, the difference is hardly noticeable. It was a pain to get it to work again, last time I did it worked fine, but this time I had to reset CMOS etc..
 
I don't overclock and rarely run memory hungry applications.
I run a small RAMdisk (400MB freeware from Cenatek) for my temporary internet files.
I only have 8GB because it was only a relativley small extra when I was building my new system and it will probably be another 3 years before I upgrade again.

If you can afford 8GB, I say go for it. It's better to have it and not need it than to not have it when you do need it.
 
One thing I am noticing now is the caching with 8gb is amazing. If I play a game and load it up later, it seems it seems like it is still cached and loads in no time.
 
rafster said:
One thing I am noticing now is the caching with 8gb is amazing. If I play a game and load it up later, it seems it seems like it is still cached and loads in no time.
Click to expand...

i wouldn't view that as a good thing. i means that the OS is being sloppy managing the contents of the ram.
 
It sounds like pretty damn good memory management to me.

Vista caches lots in spare memory, and immediately overwrites it if something else needs it.

And you'll have a heck of a lot of spare memory with 8gb installed.
 
I've tried it and the only reason I've still got that amount in is that I don't have anywhere to store it. I don't really notice any difference between 4 and 8gb. Crysis benchmark "64bit" or "32bit" says its using 846mb at maximum, and the 32bit runs faster anyway
 
balls said:
I've tried it and the only reason I've still got that amount in is that I don't have anywhere to store it. I don't really notice any difference between 4 and 8gb. Crysis benchmark "64bit" or "32bit" says its using 846mb at maximum, and the 32bit runs faster anyway
Click to expand...

The max I have seen my PC use is 6gb, but the caching seems better as I outlined and if you look at Resource Management, hard faults are effectively eliminated with 8gb.
 
Nobody needs more than 640k anyway. :p

Seriously who needs 8GB of RAM? Even most decent servers don't have or need 8GB and you can run quite a few OS virtualization in 4GB or even 2GB.

If you want more performance from games get a better GPU if you need more pep in your apps get a quad core CPU!
 
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