4GB or 8GB

[Amd PhenoM]

i will be using x64 vista, e8600, 4870 x2. my question is will 4GB of ram be enough for x64 vista and ram demanding games with extra memory to spare for inter and such? or should i get 8GB?

 

[firewolfsm]

For games it's more than enough.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you can afford it, get 8GB. RAM is cheap! It may affect your overclock though, having all four DIMM slots filled.

 

[Amd PhenoM]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
If you can afford it, get 8GB. RAM is cheap! It may affect your overclock though, having all four DIMM slots filled.

thanks Larry!! i think 4GB will be sufficient enough. i just see it as 1gb for vista and max of 2 for games, and that leaves 1gb which will be more than enough if i want to run the internet

 

[mpilchfamily]

Unless you do heavy rendering or encoding you don't need more then 4Gb of RAM.

 

[honolululu]

Isn't the reason you use x64 is because you have more than 4 GB of RAM?

Doesn't the increased memory address for 64 bit turn 4 GB into ~3.5 GB effectively?

So if you're not using more than ~3.5 GB of RAM you should be using x86 Vista?

Notice the question marks. Just trying to further the discussion.

 

[zerogear]

No, the ability to use utilize more RAM has no meaning if you cannot use the RAM. 4GB would be more than enough for Superfetch, to load applications faster, and if you are just gaming, I doubt you will ever even hit 90% of the 4GB RAM usage.

 

[nerp]

One good reason to run x64 even if you "only" have 4GB ram is that you don't lose _any_ usable address space. If you're running a 1GB card or are entertaining crossfire/SLI, you can lose a sizeable chunk of your 4GB.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: zerogear
No, the ability to use utilize more RAM has no meaning if you cannot use the RAM. 4GB would be more than enough for Superfetch, to load applications faster, and if you are just gaming, I doubt you will ever even hit 90% of the 4GB RAM usage.

Vista 64 will happily user more for superfetch. I often exceed 5.5GB to 6GB commit charge.

 

[GundamF91]

I've been running 8GB for 2 months now, and it's infrequent that I use more than 3GB of memory. That said, there were times when I used compression software that took up all 8GB of memory. It's pretty amazing seeing applications using all the memory I have. As long as the cost is low, go for 8GB, the few times you need it, you will miss it. It's like why having cars that can go 100mph when your highway driving is only 60mph........same reason.

 

[taltamir]

the more ram is mainly a straw man argument. 64bit is better because it is much faster. In some specific encryption related tasks it is 3 to 5 times faster then 32bit, I personally benchmarked 7z compression to be 27% faster (in my tests), I saw reviews from reputable sites showing hash calculation a little over 4 times faster (for the fastest, and 3 times faster for the slowest), and browsers like firefox 64bit and IE 64bit seem to be several times faster (I don't have hard data on that one).

However ram CAN come into play for some people... typically you take 4GB and subtract 0.3GB for general stuff and then ALL the video card ram you have on ALL cards / GPUs... so for a 4870x2 for example you would subtract an additional 2GB of ram in a 32bit OS!

Another point is that an individual APPLICATION can use more then 2GB of space in 64bit. So even if you have 3.3gb of addressable space in 32bit windows, your game is capped at only using 2GB. SEVERAL games HAVE gone over 2GB use in max settings, but it is rather rare.

 

[zerogear]

Originally posted by: aka1nas

Originally posted by: zerogear
No, the ability to use utilize more RAM has no meaning if you cannot use the RAM. 4GB would be more than enough for Superfetch, to load applications faster, and if you are just gaming, I doubt you will ever even hit 90% of the 4GB RAM usage.

Vista 64 will happily user more for superfetch. I often exceed 5.5GB to 6GB commit charge.

Of course it will but what I mean is, 4GB is really good enough for superfetch to perform the function it was designed to.