On Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:03:03 -0800
Yeah, there are some situations where more RAM can help. The thing is,
within the past few years (or so) the price of RAM has gotten so cheap
that just about everybody can afford WAY more RAM than they would
typically use on a day to day basis. If computers were houses, just
about all computers come with 18 bedrooms now. That a good analogy, as
most users would never use more than 3-4GB of RAM (at most), just like
most families wouldn't need more than 3-4 bedrooms in their house.
Ya but a house analogy/metaphor isn't quite right until you factor in
all
the different rooms, a 3 car garage with a pit, a kitchen with two ovens
and a large centre island that is plumbed, two full bathrooms and two
half bathrooms, a large deck with an open plan family/games/dining area
that opens on to it. If you want to harp on a single use commodity then
I'd throw in the tennis court for an aspiring pro, an olympic sized pool
for a swimmer or a tri level dog training run not a bunch of little
rooms.
Yet it's common to see a default configuration of 6-8GB of RAM in a
home computer now, and it's not unusual for people to build or upgrade
systems so that they are running with 12 or 16GB of RAM...or even more.
It's common to see 4G of RAM in systems. Custom built rigs do tag in
with
8 to 16G's. But that is also connected to a slot issue and matching dual
channel 2x2G 4x2G and 4x4G but then price does become a factor.
An 8G memory card holds around 400 RAW format photos.
If you use picasa for jpegs that's one thing but if you use a database
image program for RAWS at 12-22M per that extra RAM is nice. Now
have a 22tab browser running, something like paint.net and inkscape
and a RAW editor but that's just me, other people have vast video and
audio collections and associated apps happening.
It's a frustrating thing to see a system with 12GB of RAM (3/4ths of
which will never be touched) with a video card that was state of the
art 3-4 years ago. (for example) Or a processor with an ultra-slow
~2GHz clock speed. System builders are trying to dazzle you with gobs
of RAM to distract you from other glaring weaknesses in their
systems. -Dave
Only amongst the uninformed Dave. By the time you've hung out in
pc-homebuilt for more than a couple of months and visited a few web
pages you should be getting the drift. It might not help that everyone
and their brother have a different opinion on everything from single
core speedsters through dual core out to quad cores that they insist
on mixing and matching with various GFX/MB/HD options.
