8gb of ram worth it?

By draelas
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+Nexus18 MVC

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Upgraded to 8GB from 4GB not too long ago, largely due to BF 3, as with the game and chrome or firefox, origin running and the general AV, firewall etc. I was hitting 97% physical usage and alt tabbing out was a nightmare and would get stuttering every so often in game, made a massive difference and in general the whole system for daily things feels sooooo much better now, word documents and PDF files load instantly and this is with just a mechanical hard drive (samsung F3) :D

Besides, it is very cheap now a days, so might as well!

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Jaybonaut

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I keep thinking that too many people here are still stuck on some computer myths of yesterday. You WANT to have most of your ram full if possible, and yes, you want to have as much ram as possible. Also, lots of cheap slower ram > less but faster expensive ram. If you think that having 90% ram usage is bad, you are mistaken. Those same individuals probably think Vista and Win 7 are bad compared to earlier versions too.

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inactive

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if you got 4GB there is no real reason in most cases to upgrade.

but if you get it dirt cheap-ish having 8GB will pretty much guarantee you will never have RAM issues. if you do, by then that PC will be ancient and it won't really matter then.

p.s. i still have 2GB and i would definitely benefit if i went to 4GB but since i got the older style DDR400 (PC3200) type that stuff is expensive vs the faster types of RAM nowadays which don't make sense. but i could definitely tell my general use of PC would benefit going from 2GB to 4GB but i suspect once you hit 4GB there will be minimal AT BEST increases going over that in most cases unless you like running a ton of completely unnecessary programs which is more of a luxury thing and not really needed. because for general cases with web browser and some other fairly basic programs open and say one game open i doubt 4GB would be a issue in most cases. but even if it slightly was a issue you could just simply close the browser before loading the game and your fine.

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DrJohnSmitherson

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I keep thinking that too many people here are still stuck on some computer myths of yesterday. You WANT to have most of your ram full if possible, and yes, you want to have as much ram as possible. Also, lots of cheap slower ram > less but faster expensive ram. If you think that having 90% ram usage is bad, you are mistaken. Those same individuals probably think Vista and Win 7 are bad compared to earlier versions too.

Yes! One thing anyone can do is see how much ram their system is using on idle. Then load a vm that will use almost ALL their ram. Turn off the vm and notice the ram drop and look how much the system uses when idle then. It should be lower!

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Ambroos

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Question: do you have an SSD or a traditional HDD?

Why do I ask? Well, my laptop has an SSD RAID0, and 4GB of RAM. Windows 7 disables the caching stuff by itself (since it doesn't really provide any benifits on an SSD), which leaves me with an awful lot of REAL free memory all the time. For me, 4GB has always been enough, even while doing software development with a Linux VM open in Virtualbox.

Now on my desktop with a traditional HDD I do feel that 4GB tends not to be enough from time to time.

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ViperAFK

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Depends on what you use the computer for really. I found that with some games upgrading from 4 gigs helped a bit. Also DDR3 is really, really cheap right now.

Superfetch definitely will make full use of 8 gigs.

I actually upgraded from 8 to 16 gigs recently lol. didn't really need to but the same memory I had in my machine was on sale for 35 dollars and I thought why not. I really need to unsubscribe from those newegg emails, they keep making me buy things!

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+Nexus18 MVC

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If you think that having 90% ram usage is bad, you are mistaken. Those same individuals probably think Vista and Win 7 are bad compared to earlier versions too.

Sorry, but when you are hitting 90+% physical usage (even 80% I consider high), you notice big time the entire system slowing down/lagging, especially when running demanding applications e.g. bf 3

And once you are hitting this point, then more RAM is needed.

I never upgrade for the sake of it, only when I really need to, just look at the rest of my rig in sig.

Myself and plenty of other people on overclockers.co.uk have upgraded from 4GB to 8GB due to the same reasons that I listed above and below and have also noticed the exact same outcome as me.

With only 4GB and just BF 3, origin, firefox or chrome and my AV, firewall, dropbox, sidebar etc. in the background running, every thing was soooooo choppy and slow and alt tabing out made my system hang to the point that I thought it had crashed, during game, I would get a few seconds of the game pausing/stuttering really badly.

As soon as 8GB was put in, all of the above was much better, no more problems and according to task manager, 5+GB was being used in total when playing BF 3.

It is the same with android, you get people saying that free RAM is wasted etc. however when you have a crappy mobile that only has 150MB of RAM and as soon as it goes below 30MB free, the entire things lags and takes like 1 minute to launch the dialer etc. and sometimes due to this, even shuts down.

As for the people that say close browsers etc. not everyone wants to do this or/and sees why they should have to especially with BF 3 as you need the browser open for the voice, party, server features and some will even need team speak, procon etc. open for clan play.

With 8GB+, you don't need to worry at all! ;)

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AJerman

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To many people saying upgrade with no reasoning. If you're maxing out the current systems RAM then upgrade if you're not then don't bother!

Reason #1: http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-20-233-186-_-01182012_1

Grand Master

Rippleman

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for me, i have a Intel Core 2 Quad and went from 4 gig to 8 gigs about 2 months ago because it was cheap. I hardly notice any different but what i do doesn't demand very much. But having said that, i Still glad i have the extra headroom when needed. If it was expensive, i probably would just keep 4, but for $20, its worth it to go to 8.

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Dotdot

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On 4gb at mo and its fine. Only game with any real load time is BF3 and even thats no more than about 60-90secs.

Tho I do plan on building a new system at end of the month and will be 16gb in to future proof my investment. At just under ?80 for 16gb its a steal considering to swap my 2x2gb sticks for 2x4gb sticks in my current system was ?200

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sammy2

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I have 4gb myself but it's not bad at all because I can open 30 plus tabs and my computer still operates smoothly. I would like to upgrade but it would cost me toomuch because I am using DDR2 and my motherboard doesn't support DDR3 therefore I wouldn't want to upgrade my entire system or upgrade to 8 ddr2 only to upgrade completely a few months later (this time with DDR3, new MB, CPU etc)...

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PGHammer

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I keep thinking that too many people here are still stuck on some computer myths of yesterday. You WANT to have most of your ram full if possible, and yes, you want to have as much ram as possible. Also, lots of cheap slower ram > less but faster expensive ram. If you think that having 90% ram usage is bad, you are mistaken. Those same individuals probably think Vista and Win 7 are bad compared to earlier versions too.

Nyet on that last comment - I upgraded to 7 *from* Vista (x64 at that), and dual-boot with the WDP on top of that. However, I also multitask constantly (and have since the days of Windows 2000 Professional - my first NT-based OS I ran instead of DOS/9x).

Running multiple applications (large to small) at once, and multicore processors means you are more likely to do exactly that (not less), along with the growing appetite of games and small applications for RAM (amusingly, at the same time, large applications and general OS *housekeeping* tasks are putting themselves on a diet), combined with DDR3 pricing that is FAR cheaper than DDR2 ever was at its cheapest (currently about $5 per gigabyte for general-purpose CL9 DDR3-1333 - even high-grade performance DDR3 is no worse than $7/GB, which is $3 less than general-purpose DDR2-800).

There are two - and only two - reasons NOT to go above 4 GB of RAM today - your motherboard takes DDR2 (price reasons) or your OS is not x64 (because your CPU is not x64 capable). If either (let alone both) are true, upgrade, upgrade, upgrade (at least your motherboard and CPU) - your applications WILL thank you.

Grand Master

PGHammer

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I have 4gb myself but it's not bad at all because I can open 30 plus tabs and my computer still operates smoothly. I would like to upgrade but it would cost me toomuch because I am using DDR2 and my motherboard doesn't support DDR3 therefore I wouldn't want to upgrade my entire system or upgrade to 8 ddr2 only to upgrade completely a few months later (this time with DDR3, new MB, CPU etc)...

If you live near a MicroCenter (or purchase online - such as from Newegg or TigerDirect), you're running out of excuses.

I live near two MicroCenters (Fairfax, VA and Rockville, MD), and can buy an i5-K barebone (CPU/motherboard/RAM) for barely over $300 - and that is in-store and includes taxes (even in Maryland, which has a six percent sales-tax rate). The motherboard itself, while not high-end/enthusiast, is still based on the Z68 chipset, supports CrossFireX and is full-size ATX (ASUS P8Z68V-LX) - it will even support Ivy Bridge when the CPUs themselves become available.

Everything else (GPU, drives, case, etc.) stays put - I won't even need to reinstall Windows.

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sammy2

Posted
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If you live near a MicroCenter (or purchase online - such as from Newegg or TigerDirect), you're running out of excuses.

I live near two MicroCenters (Fairfax, VA and Rockville, MD), and can buy an i5-K barebone (CPU/motherboard/RAM) for barely over $300 - and that is in-store and includes taxes (even in Maryland, which has a six percent sales-tax rate). The motherboard itself, while not high-end/enthusiast, is still based on the Z68 chipset, supports CrossFireX and is full-size ATX (ASUS P8Z68V-LX) - it will even support Ivy Bridge when the CPUs themselves become available.

Everything else (GPU, drives, case, etc.) stays put - I won't even need to reinstall Windows.

I live in Toronto, I have a decent system just the ram is low and I don't have SSD.. I'm getting ready to have a newer system by September with everything thats new on market...

  • 5 months later...
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sammy2

Posted
Posted

If you live near a MicroCenter (or purchase online - such as from Newegg or TigerDirect), you're running out of excuses.

I live near two MicroCenters (Fairfax, VA and Rockville, MD), and can buy an i5-K barebone (CPU/motherboard/RAM) for barely over $300 - and that is in-store and includes taxes (even in Maryland, which has a six percent sales-tax rate). The motherboard itself, while not high-end/enthusiast, is still based on the Z68 chipset, supports CrossFireX and is full-size ATX (ASUS P8Z68V-LX) - it will even support Ivy Bridge when the CPUs themselves become available.

Everything else (GPU, drives, case, etc.) stays put - I won't even need to reinstall Windows.

Hey one more thing, in Toronto Taxes are 13% and I don't know of any microcenters. But I think next year ill upgrade for sure.

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