Any benefit from 8GB of RAM (4x2GB)?

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

Hey guys,

With the prices of DDR2 RAM modules going down all the time and getting very cheap, I was thinking about adding additional 4GB to my system.

I currently have 2 sticks of 2GB each of OCZ Vista Performance Gold Edition PC2-6400 800MHz 5-5-5-18.

I was thinking about buying additional 2 sticks of exactly the same brand/model. Few questions though:

1) Will I have any benefit from having 8GB of RAM on my Vista Ultimate 64-bit OS? If so, where will I see/get the biggest improvement over 4GB?

2) Do you think I'll be able to keep my current Q6600 3.2GHz overclock with FOUR (4) sticks of 2GB each in all FOUR memory slots? Right now I have my memory @5-5-5-15 instead of @5-5-5-18 and I'm using only 2 slots of ram...

3) Does having 4x2GB instead of 2x4GB affect performance in any way? I don't want to get rid of my current 2x2GB sticks and I'm not planning to upgrade to more than 8GB in the next year or so...

Your advice will be appreciated... Wink

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

Sorry for the double-post.

I just wanted to update that I've decided to keep my current 4GB setup, as after re-thinking about it, I really have no need to 8GB of RAM.

Thread can be closed... Wink

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:21:34 Post Subject:

I thought I posted to this yesterday, but must have missed the button.

I use 8GB of DDR2 (4x 2GB G.Skill PC2-6400 LL).

Most people probably don't need 8GB, but at the price it seems like a decent thing to have. The more you give Vista, the more it will use, and keep it from accessing the hard drive.

I am not totally sure about the details on this, but graphics memory mapping might be a factor if you have say, something like a 2048MB HD4850X2 card (or two) hogging up your first 4GB of system memory. Wink

mrweasel · Posted: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:06:57 Post Subject:

I saw something the other day (other Tech site) that did an article on RAM amounts....off to find it

Not what I was looking for, but....
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2008/07/08/is-more-memory-better/1

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:40:37 Post Subject:

Interesting mix of results.

Another thing... You could simply turn the page file off if you were confident that you had enough memory. I wouldn't do it with less than 4GB.

MadHacker · Posted: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:17:18 Post Subject:

If I had the extra $$$ i'd buy the ram...
get a ramdrive program and have it store your IE cache, vista would use teh extra memory to preload in apps for ya,

motanacu · Rated NC-17 Joined: 10 Apr 2009 Posts: 104

Don`t know if in any normal use someone would need more than 4 Gb...

MadHacker · Posted: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:46:57 Post Subject:

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

Thanks for the advice guys, but for the time being, I've decided to give up on it and stick with my current 4GB (2x2GB) setup.

anonemus · Posted: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:08:58 Post Subject: