8gb vs 4 gb of ram (Nov 2010)

[new2techuser]

I'm actually buying ram right now, and I was wondering whether I should get 4 gbs of ram or 8gbs of ram. I read a little of the other post which was like 2 years ago, so I thought maybe things have changed. But is it really better to game with 4gbs of ram instead of 8gbs of ram? Well I also like to do graphics/media stuff so I could benefit from the 8gbs of ram, but then I wouldn't want to lower other standards like gaming lol.

And I was planning on getting this one, so it's approx $60 for 4gbs and $120 for 8gbs of ram (I have to use ddr2 ram)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0017TZY2C/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

[MadAdmiral]

Unless you're doing a lot of rendering or encoding, 4 GB is more than enough RAM for anything. I would stick with 4 GB ([strike]or 6 GB if you're getting the i7-9xx[/strike] mentioned you needed DDR2, so this doesn't matter). You can always stick more in later when it's cheaper.

 

[reaper2794]

DDR2 is horrible...

 

[MadAdmiral]

^It's not horrible. There is actually little difference between DDR3 and DDR2. There is just a large difference between the CPUs that use DDR2 by default and those that use DDR3 by default.

 

[new2techuser]

Unless you're doing a lot of rendering or encoding, 4 GB is more than enough RAM for anything. I would stick with 4 GB ([strike]or 6 GB if you're getting the i7-9xx[/strike] mentioned you needed DDR2, so this doesn't matter). You can always stick more in later when it's cheaper.

out of curiosity, if I have a set of 2x1 gb of ram already, would it be good to add it in to the 4 gbs to make 6 gbs of ram? (considering that they are different ram, and also of slower capacity if i remember correctly).

 

[MadAdmiral]

I'd probably just get an identical set of 2x1 GB. There is very little reason to go over 4 GB, and there's even less reason once you're buying the obsolete DDR2 technology.