Tostada: How can you deny that there's a huge difference between 512 MBs and 1 GB? There is a
huge difference in my gaming. Far Cry was choppy and 1 GB solved that. Load times and exit times improved significantly; my 512 MB machines take much longer to do the same things.
No, 2 GB may not be the "standard" for most people in 6-12 months, but for the high-end gamer, it will be. I'd say 512 MB will still be the standard for normal PC users a year from now. Longhorn will probably make 1 GB the standard. But, I am not a typical user. My games are demanding 2 GB whether you believe it or not.
I was under the impression that you compare Physical Memoty (Total) to Peak (under Commit Charge). In which case you've only used up 700mb or so. With that in mind, I can tell you that after I play HL2, Peak is 980mb, Far Cry about 930, even with WC3 its like in 700s. I run other programs in the background like Kazaa and SETI and BitComet and MSN Messenger but still. I'd say 1 gig is a perfect sweet spot for now. By the time 2 gigs is needed, both your cpu and graphics card will be about 2-3 generations behind. Given that AMD is moving to DDR2 and Intel is already there, spending more money for DDR1 ram now isnt that wise in my opinion. Instead put money towards Audigy 2 soundcard, better cooling, faster cpu, faster graphics card, or aside towards a new generation graphics card or a faster larger HDD.
When physical memory is depleted, performance suffers. Sure, I can get by. Games and programs will run alright. However, they won't run optimally. Who cares about the memory architecture? That's no reason to not have enough memory. 256 MBs of PC100 runs a LOT better today than 128 MB of PC100. Back when I used SDR memory, 64 MB-128MB was the standard.
I'm not going to upgrade for at least FOUR years, guys. Therefore, more RAM WILL be extremely beneficial.
BTW, I already have an Audigy 2 ZS and my cooling is great. Most importantly, I've never noticed much of a difference from a $200 CPU and a $300 CPU. More RAM, on the other hand, has always exhibited highly noticeable performance benefits in the future (whereas the 200 MHz CPU does not). I like to stick with $300 video cards because unlike RAM, new versions of DirectX add features and increase video performance in the future. Again, the quantity of RAM matters the most--a new architecture will only be helpful for a new motherboard + CPU. I won't suddenly get more features from adding RAM later as I would with a video card. So, I might as well do it now when prices are so cheap. Plus, I've already said that I won't change mobos for at least four years. After a RAM architecture becomes obselete (PC133, for instance), module prices actually increase. Therefore, I highly doubt it will cost any more now to buy 2 GBs than it would to have 1 GB now and buy 1 GB in two years.
Ja, with little else running, Forgotten Hope pushes the peak to 900. RAM is relatively cheap, why degrade performance by not having 'nuff? Of course, each user must evaluate what is required with Task Manager according to their own usage but modern games do require 1GB to avoid paging.
Right RAM is cheap now.
JustAnAverageGuy: See my comments above about the "standard". I'm not referring to normal PC users, therefore, the standard isn't the same. Also, you need to run at max settings with 4x AA and 16x AF in a 24-32 player onslaught map like I am in order to use up 950+ MBs in under 5 minutes.