How much RAM is to much RAM?

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visser
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How much RAM is to much RAM?

Post by visser »

Alright so I was curious about all of this. and started reading up on it across some forums.

Heres the idea. The recomended sweet spot of ram for the longest time was 4 gigs. Now with 64bit OSs becoming easy and well built (thanks windows 7) people are moving up to a happy 6 gigs. Now these are the gamers.

Then there is the home user. they dont even know the difference between 4 gigs and 6 gigs so they stick with 4.

But here is where I want your guyses opinion...

I know at the very least im goin with 8 gigs on the next build im going to do a couple months from now (waiting on those fermi gpu to come out lol) I plan on doing a lot of programming and running a lot of processes at once. AIM, skype, Virtual Machines, video editing, etc. With all of these applications going I am considering getting a hefty 12 gigs of ram (6 * 2g sticks)

Im going to be building an I7 so all of the motherboards im looking at have triple channel ddr3 1600

would 12g of ram be even worth it?

Discuss lol
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Post by bad_brain »

12 GB would be an overkill. even for games it's useless because no game would need such an amount...I play the latest games (mostly FPS) but never seen more than 2.5 GB being used yet.
and even when you run multiple apps at once you would never need such an amount, I mean, what's the point in running a game and Photoshop at the same time? :lol:

the only occasions where such an amount of RAM would be useful would be for 3D development (like CAD) or maybe HD video editing.

you also have to notice that the amount of RAM modules can affect the performance in a negative way because the more modules the higher the latency.....but ok, using less modules with larger memory size has the same effect (larger memory = higher latency).
also take care of the data bus bandwidth when using dual channel, some mainboards fall back from 128bit (2 modules) to 64bit (4 or 6 modules), you usually can see the bus bandwidth on the boot screen.

my recommendation would be to check for 1 GB modules with a nice timing instead of 2 GB modules (at least for my 800MHz modules only 1GB ones are available with 4-4-4-12 timing, all 2GB ones have slower timings). so before you decide look around and compare....better less RAM but better timing than more RAM where half of it idles all the time anyway.
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Post by floodhound2 »

I currently run 8 gigs on my quad core at work with windows 7. It always seems to keep 6 gigs free. I am testing this as I type and I have 2 CAD programs running, Chrome web browser, word , my POP3 and it never goes over 2 gigs. Now my 4 processors spike all to hell but thats to be expected.

I say get 6-8 gigs but you may never use it. I like being on the fat side when it comes to ram and I am dreaming of being the first guy that makes a terabyte stick of ram.
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Post by Stavros »

For the moment 4 Gigs seems to be the sweet spot. I've not had any trouble. Unless games or other software really starts to utilize over 4 Gigs then I would consider upgrading, but not at the current prices. In my opinion no piece of software should use over 4Gigs of memory, but that's just my opinion. I did see that Metro 2033 reccomended 8Gigs of RAM which seemed rediculous in my opinion.

If you do heavy video editing then I would reccomend 6 Gigs as a base and go from there.

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Post by IceDane »

I'm not sure this has been mentioned in this thread, so I'll just point it out - you'll need a 64 bit processor and a 64 bit compatible operating system to actually utilize more than 4 gigs of your RAM.

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Post by Kirk »

From what i understand, if you are using windows 32bit anything over 4 gigs is pointless. If you are using windows 64 bt then anything over 8 gigs is useless. and from what i have experienced when actually having 8 gigs of RAM on a 64 bit system only 7.5 of it is even used. Windows cant use anymore than that. I found good 2 gig sticks and am running 8 gigs on a 32 bit system: pointless. I was planning on upgrading to win 7 64 just haven't gotten around to it. Latency is more important than size really. Sure you may have the titanic in size but the information will be slow to the processor. If you have 4 slots on you mobo get 4 1 gig chips with low latency. here is the breakdown on latency:
When you buy RAM, you'll see two main speed ratings listed: frequency (the maximum rated clock rate), and latency. Memory speed is certainly important if you're considering overclocking, but for now we're concerned only with latency. Low latency memory, running at low latency settings, supposedly speeds up your system without requiring you to overclock it.

Memory latency is almost always designated in one of two ways. It's either a single number denoting the CAS latency, or a string of four numbers denoting several latencies. CL=2.5, CAS=2.5, or C=2.5 would be common "single number" listings for RAM with a CAS latency of 2.5 cycles, for instance. A four-number designation would be something like 3-4-4-8, in which the four numbers relate to CAS – tRCD – tRP – tRAS. That's a lot of weird abbreviations, so here's the basics of what they mean:

CAS

Column Access Strobe (sometimes Column Access Select). This is actually the last stage in finding where data is physically located in RAM. Data is stored in an array of columns and rows–the row is selected first, then the column is selected and the data in memory is either read from or written to. CAS is the amount of time, in cycles, between receiving the column access command and acting upon it. It is usually a value of 2, 2.5, or 3.

tRCD

RAS (Row Access Strobe) to CAS delay. This is the delay, in number of cycles, between finding the row of a location in memory, and finding the column. This value is usually between 3 and 5 cycles, but it doesn't tend to have a huge impact on performance. Sequential bits of data are usually stored along the same row in memory, so rows are not re-selected nearly as often as columns.

tRP

RAS precharge. This is how much time it takes for the memory to stop accessing one row and start accessing another. Like tRCD, this value is typically between 3 and 5 cycles for modern memory systems. It can have an impact on performance when programs use large blocks of memory that span several rows.

tRAS

Active to Precharge Delay. This is the delay, in cycles, between the pins of the memory module electronically receiving a signal and the module starting the Row Access Strobe to locate and retrieve (or write) it. This is generally a pretty big delay, from 5 to 8 cycles on most DDR memories. But it also doesn't have a huge impact on performance, and should only make a big difference when memory access patterns change dramatically.

That's probably all still a bit confusing, so here's the chronological sequence of events: First the pins receive a request to, let's say, retrieve memory at a certain address. The first latency measurement that comes into play is tRAS, as the memory waits to activate the row where the data resides. Then tRP comes into play if the requested data resides on a different row than the one previously accessed. After the row is selected (if necessary), you have the tRCD delay before the column is selected. Then CAS is the time it takes to select the proper column of memory and retrieve data stored there. To recap, listed chronologically, it's tRAS -> tRP -> tRCD -> CAS. And CAS has the biggest impact on performance, since new columns are accessed more frequently than anything else.

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Post by bad_brain »

well, in theory a 64bit OS can use much more than 8GB, but usually it's the mainboard which is setting the limit.... :wink:
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Post by visser »

Yeah Ill be going with 8 gigs of ram so im gonna have a setup of 4 sticks of 2g each. that should be more than enough and all. I have a 64 bit OS no problem so no worries there either. thanks for the opinions guys!!
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