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2 gig overkill?

Joined
Aug 6, 2003
Messages
16
I'm building a new A64 setup in the next few weeks and was wondering if it would be worth it to run 4x512mb sticks of PC3200. Would I see enough performance increase to justify the cost in anyway or will 1 gig cover me? Comp will be used for random multitasking during the day and gaming all other times. Thanks for the help.

Brandon.
 
First of all, no a64 mobos can take for 4 sticks of ram. secondly, at this point, 2 gigs is overkill
 
All of the 939 pin boards I have seen all have 4 slots. Sorry I didn't specify, the system will be a A64 939 pin, probably FX53.
 
Unless your dong some heavy duty video encoding or graphics rendering, 2 gigs as waaaay overkill. For games 1 gig is almost overkill.
 
obyj34 said:
Unless your dong some heavy duty video encoding or graphics rendering, 2 gigs as waaaay overkill. For games 1 gig is almost overkill.

512 is bare minimum for games now a days. 1gig is the sweet spot and 1.5gig+ is overkill.

Most games nowadays ALMOST NEED 1GB of RAM.
 
It hasn't gotten to the point where I'd be recommending 2 gigs of RAM for gaming, but 1 gig yes. 2 gigs would really only be necessary for rendering, encoding, or for workstations and higher end servers.
 
Bottom line is, that if you have a gig of ram, you're good to go for the graphically intense games.
 
2 gigs will decrease performance in games. In tests i've seen, anything above 1gig decreases game performance cause it takes longer for your comp to search through that memory and grab what it needs.
 
Forek said:
2 gigs will decrease performance in games. In tests i've seen, anything above 1gig decreases game performance cause it takes longer for your comp to search through that memory and grab what it needs.
\

2 gig will not decrease the performance in your game by any noticable amount and if having that much memory caused it to be slower by any significant amount that's measurable, it would not be a good solution for computers in general.
 
Actually, in a review on [H] I saw that 1 gig was minimum recommended for newer games... I'd say 1 gig plus a 256 stick would do you fine for anything at all you'd need to do except video editing

~Adam
 
I've got a gig and it does everything I need it to do with ease. My advice - spend your money on other computer parts or a big screen TV to hook the machine up to.

-SEAL
 
CleanSlate said:
Actually, in a review on [H] I saw that 1 gig was minimum recommended for newer games... I'd say 1 gig plus a 256 stick would do you fine for anything at all you'd need to do except video editing

But if you have 2x512 running dual channel then wouldnt throwing in a 256 decrease performance? ram is only as fast as slowest stick
 
For my research work, 2Gigs is quite insufficient. However, for gaming, I find a gig is usually the sweet spot.
 
Using the extra ram for ramdisk is nice, like scratchdisk for adobe programs, or even for games, especially online games, a "small" game like WolfET loads fast when installed on ramdisk, you're sure to be the first on the map ;)
 
Stanley Pain said:
512 is bare minimum for games now a days. 1gig is the sweet spot and 1.5gig+ is overkill.

Most games nowadays ALMOST NEED 1GB of RAM.


I totally agree as things stand right now. 1GB perfect.
 
I know a guy who put 4 gigs of RAM in his intel 3.4 system, just because he runs Adobe Premiere and Photoshop.

Made me sick.
 
Yea the whole "512 is all you need" routine is getting quite old now. Most newer games really do need 1Gb.

I've got a 9800 Pro and a 2500 Barton sitting at 2.4GHz that still stutters on BFV and other games. Why? Because I only have 512 (1GB on the way).
 
First off, my older Fx-51 and asus mobo could run 4 sticks, and my new 939 Asus A8V mobo can run upto 4 gig, has four slots, and when populated with the same matching ram runs 2 Dual Channels of Ram, so im gonna make the order and order me another Gig of Mushkin 3200 Cas 2/2/2 and run 2 gigs.
 
my next machine will be dual opteron and 2-3 gigs, and i'll be using it somewhat for gaming.

reason why is i want to completely disable the page file.

i feel that would speed up performance tremendously. even if i have a gig of ram, i still have to do hard drive accessing. completely getting rid of that will be a huge benifit.
 
2GB will help you for sure, I know that UT2004 and Far Cry, and lots of new games will fill up 1GB for sure. With 2GB I wouldn't be scared to turn off memory paging either.
 
Some games will not run properly if you disable the paging file, I can't recall which ones off the top of my head but I had a problem with it once before and I think it was a MMORPG probablly SWG.
 
Photoshop requires a Page File. I'm sure other similar programs as well as maybe video editing ones do too.
 
DrJacob said:
2GB will help you for sure, I know that UT2004 and Far Cry, and lots of new games will fill up 1GB for sure. With 2GB I wouldn't be scared to turn off memory paging either.

The thing is though that the page file usualy doesnt kick in until all of the available ram is used up or the program cant fit into ram fully. So basically its kinda pointless to turn off the page filing option :( it'll save you the headache of seeing one of those damn windows error messages..../me starts rambling on about Billy Boy and his BSOD's
 
DemonDiablo said:
The thing is though that the page file usualy doesnt kick in until all of the available ram is used up or the program cant fit into ram fully. So basically its kinda pointless to turn off the page filing option :( it'll save you the headache of seeing one of those damn windows error messages..../me starts rambling on about Billy Boy and his BSOD's
I remember reading someones post that stated that Windows will use the page file, even if it isn't needed.
 
New games like far cry example like to have atleast 1 gig of memory. Even everquest requires atleast 1 gig of memory to run smoothly. 2 gigs is by no means a overkill and will only make your system that much faster.
 
When I go to college, I plan to major in computer animation and I'm building an A64 rig so I can do that stuff in my dorm. If i got 2x512, I would only be able to add 1 more stick of ram as opposed to 2 slots with 1gig stick. And I do intend to put more memory since rendering is a resource hog, I also plan to game on my spare time as well. So I was wondering, would there be any difference in getting 1gig stick(s) of ram to 2x512 sticks of ram?
 
If you're not using a dual channel A64, no real difference in getting 1 gig stick of 2x512, besides cost.

Computer animation huh? Have fun; my school just introduced a game development major, but I'm sticking with Computer Science.
 
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