For those of you with 2 GB RAM - do you feel it's enough?

[.tony]

I just bumped my 512MB to 2.5GB, and XP runs nicely on this, I think it's enough.

Mind you, I don't have the graphics card nor processor to play intensive games, so I'm not sure if my opinion will be different if I was a gamer.

Pentium 4 and Intel Integrated Graphics limits me now.

[Glowstick]

The more, the merrier. 8GB baby!

[MulletRobZ]

I only have 512 MB of RAM on my iBook and it runs more than adequate for what I need to use it for, and that includes heavy Photoshop and InDesign (CS2) usage, plus some occasional gaming. However, if I were to use CS3, then yes, it would run sluggish and I would recommend at least 1.5 GB (the iBook's maximum) for that.

As for Windows, I find 256 to 512 MB is fine for similar tasks.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

I'd say the more RAM the better at prices today.... Go with 4 or 8 or 16GB or whatever you can afford to shove in to the max!

That being said, there are not silver bullets in anything. You're computer isn't going to never run sluggish even with 4GB or 1TB of RAM in it. Main reason is RAM is still used as a CACHE and not as storage, for obvious reasons. As a result, whenever something needs to go into RAM from the HD it will be noticably sluggish since HDs are so slow. For example, you could experience slowdown after playing a game and deciding to exit it. The reason is the game just probably freed up 2GB or more of RAM. Windows will then start filling that RAM with the stuff it paged out to the HD, which might include the application you're trying to now bring into view, and you'll experience sluggishness.

So, even though I recommend the most RAM you can afford and the machine can hold there is a point where it might not be useful to you and it isn't a silver bullet to solve sluggishness concerns. Depending on your usage you might benefit from getting a faster RPM or higher density HD to make that slow link just a tad faster.

[Ci7]

For example, you could experience slowdown after playing a game and deciding to exit it. The reason is the game just probably freed up 2GB or more of RAM. Windows will then start filling that RAM with the stuff it paged out to the HD, which might include the application you're trying to now bring into view, and you'll experience sluggishness.

So, even though I recommend the most RAM you can afford and the machine can hold there is a point where it might not be useful to you and it isn't a silver bullet to solve sluggishness concerns. Depending on your usage you might benefit from getting a faster RPM or higher density HD to make that slow link just a tad faster.

+1

true when i was playing crysis with 2GB system get sluggish when i quit

but not anymore long since i add 2 more gigabytes of memory it isnt noticeable now :)

just waiting for SSDs to get sane prices (300$) for 256GB that would be cool i am aiming for OCZ core 2 to get released . :D

[Brian M. Veteran]

I currently have 2GB in this machine, but I'm going to upgrade it to 4GB shortly.

Today, I was using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Audition together, and Windows was constantly paging to the hard disk because there wasn't enough Physical memory available.

Scenarios like this are pretty rare (as I hate working with Flash ;)), however, when they do crop up, it'd be nice to have a bit more memory available.

[GuJu]

its not enough for me on vista..bc i game but i plan to upgrade the whole rig in a year.

[uniacidz]

I noticed a HUGE improvement when going from 512MB to 1GB, a BIG improvement from 1GB to 2GB, and even from 2GB to 4GB it was a significantly noticeable performance upgrade.

I agree

[Boktai1000]

I'm using 2gb as of now, in the near future I plan on grabbing another 2gb and then making the switch to x64.

[what]

2GB is fine for me.

[kernatch]

I've only ever used vista on a PC with at least 2gb of ram. And I would never consider using one with less than that. It seems bad enough with 2gb.

I built my PC 3 years ago and I had 1gb the whole time, which was fine for me on XP. I upgraded to Vista and it wasn't great if you had more than a few things open, so I had to buy an extra gig. I'm sure more would probably be even better, but it's no longer frustrating to use, plus I didn't want to spend lots of money on obsolete DDR anyway.

[Navan]

Yep, enough for me. :)

[Xerxes]

No. I've got 3gb and XP/Games run really good.

2GB just didn't quite cut it.

Don't even go there with Vista. It runs poorly on my laptop with 2gb, going to get 4gb for it soon.

Eh? I run Vista perfectly fine on 1.5Gb RAM (DDR400 too) and the machine is on it's way to been 4 years old now. I originally had 2Gb on my main Vista machine and it was fine, but since RAM is so cheap I upgraded to 4Gb :p (although I'm having problems with faulty RAM right now...) I have to admit, I've noticed no different between 2Gb and 4Gb, both in games and Windows.

[The Dark Knight]

not enough for me, i tend to keep a lot of apps open, don't bother closing them, thats why i upgraded to 8GB.

[Marco925]

Enough for me at the moment

Each of my 4 Modern PCs have 2GB

[Echilon]

2Gb was enough until I started running out. Now I use 4Gb with Vista x64 and everything's much smoother. (Y)

[raider360]

I have 2 Gigs and it's enough for daily usage and gaming (CSS,TF2,COD4) but I am planning to move over Vista soon.

[NinjaGinger]

I had 2gig for XP , for Vista I upped to 4. It is heavy on system but Vista is miles better than XP ever was. Vista was a dog when it was firsty released but now (not perfect) much better than XP ever was.

Most likely Vista would be OK with 2.

My Laptop has 2 and it's fine

[chrisj1968]

For the time being yes. But my next system, a laptop will be 3 or 4Gb minimum. so I'll have to upgrade to the 64bit Vista I think.

[RPDL]

I do gaming in Vista and 2gb 667mhz is perfect. I strongly doubt I would be able to increase graphics quality in games if I upgraded my memory, since I have a mediocre Pentium D and Radeon 2600.

[scaramonga]

More than enough, unless your using Bloatista.

:)

[FiB3R]

I'm using Vista x64 and I'd say 4GB is JUST enough, but then again, I'm what you might call a power/messy user

[chrisj1968]

I do gaming in Vista and 2gb 667mhz is perfect. I strongly doubt I would be able to increase graphics quality in games if I upgraded my memory, since I have a mediocre Pentium D and Radeon 2600.

Memory wouldn't make graphics look better but it surely would make applications run better.

@ anyone; how's the driver support for Vista x64 around this time? I see most drivers for my hardware in x64 bit lately.

[-Hiroshi-]

Running Vista, it feels like it's enough.. but all I play is CS Source.. so.. thats really all I need.

[AKladis]

I don't use Vista and I find that XP and Linux run just fine on 2gig RAM. On my Acer/Vista laptop I installed Ubuntu and the speed change was surprisingly fast.