Thread: 4 GB

Do you do a lot of multitasking or work where it eats up your RAM or is this strictly for gaming? If it is just gaming, 2 gigs should be fine for now if you want to save some money, maybe 3 if you like to have a lot of other things running while you're playing. Most games right now don't use that much RAM by themselves and its really only needed to help you multitask or perform certain functions better.

I have 4 gigs and will get 4 gigs of DDR2 if/when I upgrade because I do a lot of multitasking, but even then, I rarely use it all, the most I'll get to is 80% when I working on a lot of things, I have yet to actually tap out my ram usuage but I like to have it in case I do it.

well i run 4gig, But as i found out today, if its for gaming and you intend on over clocking the you only want 2 gig. and if you could for 4 512 sticks this would make things even faster. less time for the memory to respond. hope this helps.

Any 32 bit OS will not use 4Gb RAM correctly. If you have 4 physical Gb available and you run a 32 bit OS the most you will see available is 3.2. And in actuality only 2 of that is usable for application workspace.

So, unless you plan to upgrade to a 64 bit OS (which eventually you ought to so you can use DX10, provided you have a DX10 compatible card) there is no good reason for it. But the arguments of "it's always handy to have extra memory for another computer" has held true for me. And like I said, it will be nice to have 4Gb when Vista 64 has saturated the market.

So really, if you have the extra money and it's cheap it will make you more future ready but you wont see any improvement on your current setup.

Originally Posted by SoySoldier

Any 32 bit OS will not use 4Gb RAM correctly. If you have 4 physical Gb available and you run a 32 bit OS the most you will see available is 3.2. And in actuality only 2 of that is usable for application workspace.

I ran into this problem... I almost was dumb enugh to by the 2 gig sticks for my laptop, when I read in a forum for the, compal Hel80... exactly what soy is talking about... wont work.

No no no, Vista in itself can utilize DX10, regardless of it being 32 or 64 bit. Realize though that any 32 bit OS will only allow you to really use 2-3 gigs of RAM. If you want 4 gigs of RAM and to actually be able to use it, you need to have a 64 bit OS.

Vista itself likes to use a lot of RAM for various things depending on how you have it set up so a minimum of 2 gigs is really needed for it to work smoothly with all the features on. If you have turned some stuff off (ie Sidebar) you could probably do fine with the 2 gigs.

Soy was trying to say (at least I'm guessing he is) is that Vista 64 will eventually be the way to go as things will be able to use more RAM, and you'll need more the 2 gigs, and you'll need those 4 gigs of RAM. If it is cheap and you can afford it, you might as well get it now to save you time and probably some $$$ later.

It never hurts to have more RAM either as it will speed some things up, some you'll see, some you won't. I noticed when I went from 2 to 4 because I do a lot of multitasking and the jump made things all the more easier as it could be spread out over the 4 sticks and I had the 4 gigs for when I needed to render some stuff in PS for example.

Even in gaming you should see some difference, but it might not be that much because most games right not really don't use that much memory. If you like to do other things while you gaming or you just want to get the extra 2 gigs now while you have the money, get it if you have or are willing to move to a 64 bit OS. If you do move to a 64 bit OS, I'd go with Vista 64 as it is much better than XP 64 and it just keeps getting better and better as time goes on.