1GB vs 2GB

[kjk]

Hi Folks,

If I run Vista Home Premium on an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system, with
Adobe Premiere being the most stressful usage, do you think that I'd
notice any improvement with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB RAM? Any advice
would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Ken

 

[Byron Hinson]

Yeah you would notice the difference, especially in a program like that.

 

[Frankster]

Yep. Absolutely! Adobe Premiere being the one main reason. Although, Vista
itself can benefit greatly from 2GB as compared to 1GB. Unlike XP from my
experience, where the basic XP load (not discussing applications here) is
about the same speed with either 1 or 2 Gig of memory.

-Frank

 

[MICHAEL]

Hi Folks,

If I run Vista Home Premium on an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system, with
Adobe Premiere being the most stressful usage, do you think that I'd
notice any improvement with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB RAM? Any advice
would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Absolutely you'd notice an improvement.

Mo RAM, mo better.


-Michael

 

[Bill Condie]

Not to doubt you guys, but I'd love to see an actual usage comparison

 

[Richard Urban]

Video rendering is one of the most intense applications that can be
performed. You already have a great CPU. Increasing your RAM will make a
tremendous difference in the amount of time needed to render a video. Go for
it. RAM is cheap right now.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Dale]

It's funny how this ng works. Sometimes it is quiet and you think no one
but yourself is so lifeless as to be reading the thing and then someone asks
for an opinion on something like this and you find out by the rush of
replies that you're not alone in the world. LOL

That said, here's my answer.

I had a memory score of 4.2 or 4.3 with one gig of memory. Simply adding a
second gig of identical memory increased my memory score to 5.6 and gave me
noticeable improvement in performance.

Dale

 

[Bill Condie]

Thank you!

I got a 4.5 with one gig. I may well upgrade

My Video card drops me to a 3.7 score because of gaming graphics. The Radeon
x600 is only 3.9.

Will prolly upgrade that too. Any suggestions?

Actually my routine performance is pretty fast, even Photoshop with
smallish, under 20MB, files.

RAM use on the cute clock hovers around 40-50, drops to low 30s after period
of inactivity

 

[Robert Moir]

Not to doubt you guys, but I'd love to see an actual usage comparison

For movie rendering? Try it on any machine you have in front of you
(assuming you have the memory). This isn't really a Vista question, more
memory improves movie rendering greatly in any "professional" movie
manipulating software, whether premiere, final cut pro or anything else you
like on any OS you like.

 

[Bill Condie]

Thank you!

I got a 4.5 with one gig. I may well upgrade

My Video card drops me to a 3.7 score because of gaming graphics. The Radeon
x600 is only 3.9.

Will prolly upgrade that too. Any suggestions?

Actually my routine performance is pretty fast, even Photoshop with
smallish, under 20MB, files.

RAM use on the cute clock hovers around 40-50, drops to low 30s after period
of inactivity

 

[Frankster]

You must have a dual-core processor. Seems that each of your processors is
sending a message to this newsgroup.

LOL! Just kidding!!!

-Frank

 

[Dale]

Well, based on the problems people have been having, I suggest any video
card except Nvidia and ATI.

Oh wait. There are no video cards other than Nvidia and ATI.

Actually, I am using the built-in drivers for my Nvidia 7600GS based video
card and I haven't had any problems even with what little gaming I do - Age
of Empires and Flight Simulator etc. Nothing really state-of-the-art.

Dale

 

[Guest]

Hello Ken,

Hi Folks,

If I run Vista Home Premium on an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system, with
Adobe Premiere being the most stressful usage, do you think that I'd
notice any improvement with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB RAM? Any advice
would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Ken

It is important to match the various components of your computer
system to your individual needs. Most people seem to underestimate
how much adding good quality additional memory can be to a system.
Yes, you will notice a difference. It won't be twice as fast on
some tasks, but many will perform much better.

Think of it like a car that can go 300 kph and you are able to
safely drive it. Now consider the same car and driver on your
local city streets. You and the car are always running out of
road before an obstacle occurs. You never get to use the car
and engine (CPU) to its potential.

A good processor such as you have, with a good FSB and memory
model, but only 1GB of RAM, might use up all that RAM in
perhaps 1/4 seconds during video editing. Your available
RAM and external storage (usually hard drives) needs to be
large enough that you can keep the processor busy and in
turn keep doing the work that you want to accomplish.

David

 

[Ken Gardner]

It is important to match the various components of your computer
system to your individual needs. Most people seem to underestimate
how much adding good quality additional memory can be to a system.
Yes, you will notice a difference. It won't be twice as fast on
some tasks, but many will perform much better.

People further grossly underestimate the central importance of RAM to
overall system performance. It is by far the most important component. The
fastest CPU in the world won't help if the OS must constantly access the HD
because there is insufficient RAM to hold data and code in physical memory.
And ditto for the HD itself, which at its very best will still be vastly
slower than RAM.

Think of it like a car that can go 300 kph and you are able to
safely drive it. Now consider the same car and driver on your
local city streets. You and the car are always running out of
road before an obstacle occurs. You never get to use the car
and engine (CPU) to its potential.

This is a great analogy. The more RAM you have, the longer and (much)
faster you can drive before hitting any obstacles.

[...]

Ken

 

[Bill Condie]

Windows Mail said it couldn't send then it did . . .twice :-(

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

If I run Vista Home Premium on an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system, with
Adobe Premiere being the most stressful usage, do you think that I'd
notice any improvement with 2GB RAM instead of 1GB RAM? Any advice
would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Absolutely! I think it likely that almost anyone would see an improvement
with 2GB, but that's *especially* true of someone doing video editing.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I had a memory score of 4.2 or 4.3 with one gig of memory. Simply
adding a second gig of identical memory increased my memory score to
5.6 and gave me noticeable improvement in performance.

If you say it increased your score to 5.6, I believe you, but I'm confused.
Under "What is Rated" for the Memory Score, it says "Memory operations per
second." Why should doubling the amount of RAM have any effect on the memory
speed?

 

[William]

There should a measure of performance gain. Windows loves more memory.

 

[Tom Lake]

If you say it increased your score to 5.6, I believe you, but I'm
confused. Under "What is Rated" for the Memory Score, it says "Memory
operations per second." Why should doubling the amount of RAM have any
effect on the memory speed?

If he only had one stick before but now has two and his motherboard supports
dual channel, it would speed up access tremendously. I saw an increase of
40% performance in benchmarks after adding the second stick. (Actually
I added three sticks for a total of 4 GB RAM)

Tom Lake

 

[Dale]

idunno....

It is what it is, I guess.

If you say it increased your score to 5.6, I believe you, but I'm
confused. Under "What is Rated" for the Memory Score, it says "Memory
operations per second." Why should doubling the amount of RAM have any
effect on the memory speed?