How much RAM is too much or no benefit

  • Thread starter Thread starter t d w
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T

t d w

so currently i have 1GB of PC2700 RAM...i am thinking of adding another 512
MB to that. is this overkill? i am running WIN XP Pro. i do some photo
editing and plenty of gaming. is there a point where adding more RAM is a
waste of money cause the returns aren't there??

tw

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PC and Golf Guy
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Homebuilt AMD XP 2600+
Abit KX7R 333
1GB PC2700 RAM
ATI 9600 XT 128MB Video
Santa Cruz Audio
Dual Seagate Barracuda HDs
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so currently i have 1GB of PC2700 RAM...i am thinking of adding another 512
MB to that. is this overkill? i am running WIN XP Pro. i do some photo
editing and plenty of gaming. is there a point where adding more RAM is a
waste of money cause the returns aren't there??

tw
Click to expand...

Whith that much memory you must have a reason. How much RAM you need
depends on what applications you run. You can see how much memory
your software is using by running Task Manager

- Right mouse click on a black part of the grey task bar
- Pick Task Manager from the list
- Click on the processes tab
- Click on "memory usage" to sort the list by memory, largest on
the top.

What Are They ?

In Task Manager, if you click on the Performance tab you will see
overall memory usage numbers.
 
t said:
so currently i have 1GB of PC2700 RAM...i am thinking of adding another 512
MB to that. is this overkill? i am running WIN XP Pro. i do some photo
editing and plenty of gaming. is there a point where adding more RAM is a
waste of money cause the returns aren't there??

tw
Click to expand...


You need to check and see what the *maximum* amount of RAM that your MB
will accept. Up to that amount...you can't have too much! But exceeding
the maximum will almost certainly create problems. Check your MB
manual/website...
 
t d w said:
so currently i have 1GB of PC2700 RAM...i am thinking of adding another 512
MB to that. is this overkill? i am running WIN XP Pro. i do some photo
editing and plenty of gaming. is there a point where adding more RAM is a
waste of money cause the returns aren't there??
Click to expand...

This kind of question is so common, yet the one and only correct answer
largely goes completely ignores. The answer is: only you can determine that
by checking how much memory your system is using. Use the Windows
performance utility to see how much of your RAM and swap file are in use
when you are doing the things you want to do with your computer. If you
are just playing a single game, there's pretty much no way more than 1G can
help you. However photo editing can take up huge amounts of memory,
depending. Then of course there is the issue of: if it improves, does the
improvement really matter to me, and is it worth it? Your swap file is
there for a reason, quite often it works just fine.
 
Al Dykes said:
Whith that much memory you must have a reason. How much RAM you need
depends on what applications you run. You can see how much memory
your software is using by running Task Manager

- Right mouse click on a black part of the grey task bar
- Pick Task Manager from the list
- Click on the processes tab
- Click on "memory usage" to sort the list by memory, largest on
the top.

What Are They ?

In Task Manager, if you click on the Performance tab you will see
overall memory usage numbers.
Click to expand...

Wow, right when I ragged on about no one getting this answer right - after
all these years finally someone says it :-)
 
so currently i have 1GB of PC2700 RAM...i am thinking of adding another
512 MB to that. is this overkill? i am running WIN XP Pro. i do some photo
editing and plenty of gaming. is there a point where adding more RAM is a
waste of money cause the returns aren't there??
Click to expand...

The point of adding too much ram is when you don't use anywhere near the
amount of physical RAM you have, and your computer doesn't get any speed
gains by adding any more. About 2 years ago, Maximum PC ran a test and
found the speed difference between 1GB and 512MB of RAM negligible.
However, I have 512MB of RAM and I find myself using 90%+ of it when I have
Photoshop open and working on a large pic. I'm thinking of upgrading to
1GB. However, I'll be building a new computer before I need to go any
higher than that.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
7:18pm up 44 days 4:03, 2 users, load average: 0.42, 0.43, 0.31

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...
 
Wow, right when I ragged on about no one getting this answer right - after
all these years finally someone says it :-)
Click to expand...

Thanks; and for my second act;

As I understand Windows workstation (nt, w2k, xp) adding more memory
than your applications need has no benefit, but has no downside that I
can think of. On a Windows Server (NT, w2k server, 2003) memory in
excess of the application requirements gets used for buffers to speed
up client requests, so all memory is always "used", but there is a
point of diminishing returns. At some point more buffers doesn't
provide any measurable performance improvement.

Things change, and it's posssible that in XP, Microsoft found
some way to buffer disk for performance, as the server does.

Linux is the same but diffferent :-)
 
so currently i have 1GB of PC2700 RAM...i am thinking of adding another 512
MB to that. is this overkill? i am running WIN XP Pro. i do some photo
editing and plenty of gaming. is there a point where adding more RAM is a
waste of money cause the returns aren't there??

tw
Click to expand...

You should try to limit yourself to one or two sticks of ram.
Many (most?) mobos become a bit more finicky about ram, when you do
more. That's one reason.
Another reason is that if you use more than 2 sticks, or dissimilar
sticks, the memorycontroller drops in performance.

On AMD systems, you get lower bandwidth, which thankfully only affects
performance on some apps. It's a bit more serious for Intel chipset
and P4s. Here latency is affected, and a general reduction in system
performance occurs. I think it can get as bad 30%.

So my advice is, stick to your 1 GB, unless you're routinely running
above 1GB app space, which I frankly cannot see photoediting do.

As for games, you're going to need an Athlon64 anyway, for really big
games.

Ancra
 
Ruel Smith (Big Daddy) said:
The point of adding too much ram is when you don't use anywhere near the
amount of physical RAM you have, and your computer doesn't get any speed
gains by adding any more. About 2 years ago, Maximum PC ran a test and
found the speed difference between 1GB and 512MB of RAM negligible.
Click to expand...

See.... that sort of statement (if that is indeed all that Maximum PC had to
say) is totally useless. The problem is people running around yelling that
they added 128M or 256M to their computers and it sped things up
tremendously, therefore everyone should do it. Even the salespeople walk
around making vague references to "better performance" with no real
yardstick that customers can use to make decisions. Under some
circumstances the difference between 1G and 512M will be huge. Under
others, it will be totally unnoticeable.
 
See.... that sort of statement (if that is indeed all that Maximum PC had to
say) is totally useless. The problem is people running around yelling that
they added 128M or 256M to their computers and it sped things up
tremendously, therefore everyone should do it. Even the salespeople walk
around making vague references to "better performance" with no real
yardstick that customers can use to make decisions. Under some
circumstances the difference between 1G and 512M will be huge. Under
others, it will be totally unnoticeable.
Click to expand...

Please read the post muppet. I'll quote it seeing as you MISSED THE
OBVIOUS:

"The point of adding too much ram is when you don't use anywhere near
the amount of physical RAM you have"

--
Conor

"The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world.
And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."
- George Bush
 
Conor said:
Please read the post muppet. I'll quote it seeing as you MISSED THE
OBVIOUS:

"The point of adding too much ram is when you don't use anywhere near
the amount of physical RAM you have"
Click to expand...

How ironic. Please read MY post, knee-jerker. I was referring to THE
MAXIMUM PC MAGAZINE STATEMENT, NOT YOURS.
 
why state the obvious? How much gas would you put in your car, just 2 bucks or fill it? That would depend on your cash on hand, you
fill the MB with its max amount, if you can afford it. Whether its a benefit or not depends on where your going. Memory could be
swapped around in different builds if the MB's accept it, so it could be used in the future if you find you don't need that amount .
 
JAD said:
why state the obvious? How much gas would you put in your car, just 2 bucks or fill it? That would depend on your cash on hand, you
fill the MB with its max amount, if you can afford it.
Click to expand...

That's a silly anaology. RAM is not a consumable like gasoline. And even
if you 'can afford it' it's senseless to waste money.
Whether its a benefit or not depends on where your going. Memory could be
swapped around in different builds if the MB's accept it, so it could be used in the future if you find you don't need that amount .
Click to expand...

In the future you could buy better RAM for the second hypothetical
system you're talking about, which completely misses the point of the
OP's query.
 
jeffc said:
had to



How ironic. Please read MY post, knee-jerker. I was referring to THE
MAXIMUM PC MAGAZINE STATEMENT, NOT YOURS.
Click to expand...

No, you quoted his statement, you were referring to his as well. Next
time be clearer with your cutting and typing, as very few of us appear
to have mastered mind reading to the extent that you have.
 
Sooky said:
No, you quoted his statement, you were referring to his as well. Next
time be clearer with your cutting and typing, as very few of us appear
to have mastered mind reading to the extent that you have.
Click to expand...

Sorry, that was snippy, but filter out the antisocial attitude and the
point remains the same.
 
Sorry you don't get it.

Sooky Grumper said:
That's a silly anaology. RAM is not a consumable like gasoline. And even
if you 'can afford it' it's senseless to waste money.
amount .

In the future you could buy better RAM for the second hypothetical
system you're talking about, which completely misses the point of the
OP's query.
Click to expand...
 
JAD said:
why state the obvious? How much gas would you put in your car, just 2
Click to expand...
bucks or fill it?

You would think it would be obvious, but it's not. You need to ask why
state the obvious? The answer itself is pretty obvious. Because most
people don't get it. The gas gauge on your car is very plain to see. On
Windows, you have to go looking for it.
 
Sooky Grumper said:
Sorry, that was snippy, but filter out the antisocial attitude and the
point remains the same.
Click to expand...

I thought it was quite obvious that when I quote 3 statements and say
something immediately after the third, rather than after the 1st or second,
that "the statement" being referred to is the last. If there was mind
reading going on, it's not my fault. He stated categorically that I was
wrong. I reply to people in the tone they reply to me. If he was confused
he should have asked. He wasn't confused - he was quite sure of himself.
But he was wrong.
 
I thought it was quite obvious that when I quote 3 statements and say
something immediately after the third, rather than after the 1st or
second,
that "the statement" being referred to is the last. If there was mind
reading going on, it's not my fault. He stated categorically that I was
wrong. I reply to people in the tone they reply to me. If he was
confused
he should have asked. He wasn't confused - he was quite sure of himself.
But he was wrong.
Click to expand...

Point out where I was wrong. Because an article in Maximum PC measured to
see if there were any performance gains under WinXP using 1GB RAM instead
of 512MB and found that it was so slight, it wasn't worth the upgrade? How
was that _wrong_?

My point is simple: if you cannot get any speed gains from adding more
memory, nor have you not maxed out your current amount of physical RAM,
there is simply no reason to get more. More memory would not give you any
benefits.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
9:51pm up 45 days 6:36, 2 users, load average: 0.46, 0.30, 0.15

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...
 
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