I'm debating upgrading from 4 gigs to 8, does it really make a big difference? As reference, I have: Phenom II X4 3.2 gig processor 4 gigs DDR3 1600 RAM Fairly slow HD (I think ~8000 RPM) GT450 Graphics Card The next upgrade after that probably an SSD since I only have a 250 gig HD anyway, followed by graphics card.
Absolutely, If you are running Windows 7 I would not game with anything less the 6 or 8 GB. You can do it with 4, but 8 will give you a lot more breathing room and keep he OS from paging things to the Hard drive. Which will slow everything down significantly. If you get memory, make sure that it is supported by your motherboard. I have had this issue in the past and it is very hard to troubleshoot when you have just built the computer. I personally suggest crucial memory as they have a guarantee that it will work with you mobo. I have had bad luck with G.Skill but lots of people like it. Also, try to get as fast of memory as you can afford, the CAS latency is not as important as the speed. Although most of the time when you look at higher end and gaming memory it will have lower CAS.
More memory is always a good thing, especially if you do a lot of multitasking and/or your graphics card has a smaller allocation of VRAM.
You really do not, RAM is so cheap it is the first thing that should be upgraded. A decent video card is 175+, much less then that and it is not worth upgrading. 8GB of Corsair Vengeance PC3 12800 is 53.99 on Newegg. You cannot get a much bigger bang for your buck.
I guess we are going to have to disagree here. last night while streaming music/teamspeak/gaming/browsers I only addressed max of 4.1gb of ram. easily covered by 4gb + page file. For $230 I can buy a 570. That should allow him to run most games on max with no FPS issues. Or if i knew the exact card I could probably get another 460 for $100 that would give him 50% more video performance (assuming he has a mobo that can use SLI) Not saying he shouldn't get more, but right now i believe his biggest bottleneck is that card.
My take on this... When Tuna has used all the VRAM he can from the gfx card, the next place the application/game will look is the MoBo for memory. So it makes sense that more RAM would cover this should he be multitasking in other things or using software that has a high RAM requirement. As soon as you begin paging for memory your system performance takes a huge dive as it is then reliant upon the read/write speeds of your HDD and unless you are using SSD then you're going to really notice a decline. By spending 1/4 of the cost of a new card on RAM he's getting 'the most bang for his buck' as it were. Now, if Tuna has money to burn, then yes I would rather see him upgrade his gfx card as he'll get an all-around better result. But if money is an issue then more RAM is the easiest way to see improvement.
Yea, GFX card will have to be paired with a new PSU, which is just a pain in the ass to install so I'm taking baby steps. I'll have to check my motherboard, don't remember it off the top of my head to see what its compatible with.
You can not have to much RAM... If you run out of places to stick it.. duct tape it to the side of the machine. On a more serious note 8 gigs of ram is all that keeps my machine from going completely obsolete seeing as i run on a i3 processor and a old 8800GTS card from Nvidia (a kick-arse card but it is sort of running a bit old by now... Actually by GFX card standard i think it is ancient)
yes its going to be good for speeding up processes on your computer but it will not enhance the graphic performance witch means if you actually play games in really high def they will have latency you can all ways test the performance with software and currently from my knowledge windows does not support more than 8gigs of ram if you surpass that it will still work but it will be set to 8gigs
64-bit Windows OS support a lot more than 8gb of RAM (with the exception of Windows 7 home premium - 16gb and Windows 7 home basic - 8gb). 32-bit Windows only supports up to 3gb. I've had workstations using 32gb+ with a Windows 64-bit OS and there was room for increase, up to 192gb.
Sooo, ok now I have a new 8 gig of memory. I still have the two old 2 gig sticks leftover.. is it possible to use the new 4 gig sticks AND the 2 gig sticks at the same time? They're both 1600 ddr3, although they have slighly different voltage and latency numbers. One is corsair and the other gskill...
I'd not worry about the old sticks of memory. And as Valhalla stated, you want to be wary of running RAM with differing voltage as you could damage the RAM with lower voltage requirements.
Depending on the sticks and mobo you could alter voltage to be the same. Also make the timings the same too. Then run it through memtest to see if its stable.
