Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Memory > How much RAM is enough?
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mcbugzz   01-02-2003 at 10:22:42 PM

I have an Athlon XP 1500+ on ASUS A7V266 DDR with ASUS GF4Ti 4400 Deluxe and... 256 MB of 2100 DDR RAM. (Samsung, non CL-2) Is it worth moving to 512 MB? My everyday tasks are: WinXP, MatLab, Linux, Quake 3, 3DS MAX 5.0 etc.


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Crashman   01-03-2003 at 04:19:38 AM
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Yes, 512MB will be better. I've seen XP take 148MB at BOOT, that doesn't leave you a lot for apps with only 256MB.

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icy_oblivion   01-03-2003 at 08:32:39 PM
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Definatley double the ram in your system. I am only running with 256MB and if I had the money I would double my ram without even thinking.

<b>Just because I like AMD or Intel more at a time because of one product compared to another, does not make me a fan boy, it makes me a person who is able to make a descision for myself.</b>

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JAGedlion   01-04-2003 at 03:28:11 AM
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I heard that up to 512 megs of ram you will see and improvement and past that the difference becomes smaller.

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JAGedlion   01-04-2003 at 03:28:20 AM
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I heard that up to 512 megs of ram you will see an improvement and past that the difference becomes smaller.

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icy_oblivion   01-04-2003 at 04:11:28 AM
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That is true for most users, if you are doing a lot of video editing or high end 3d modeling/rendering then a gig of ram is helpful.

<b>Just because I like AMD or Intel more at a time because of one product compared to another, does not make me a fan boy, it makes me a person who is able to make a descision for myself.</b>

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upec   01-04-2003 at 11:39:26 AM
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You will see a improvement if you have 512MB of RAM.

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knowan   01-04-2003 at 07:45:12 PM
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Depends on what you're using it for, and what OS you're running. For typical office applications (word, excel, e-mail and web surfing) then 256 is plenty. If you play alot of games on win XP or 2000 then get 512. If you play alot of games on win 98 then it is debatable.

If you do video editing or other heavy apps, then get at least 512.

If you're running win 98 then don't get over 512 megs.

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Jeff68005   01-16-2003 at 06:24:09 AM
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You indicated you have XP. 512 is the minimum that I would run. I run 3 sticks of 256 except for two machines which have 512 + 256 +256 for a total of one Gig.

Every working computer must be improved .... or replaced ...

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mcbugzz   01-16-2003 at 09:07:07 AM
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I got another 256 MB, so I have 512 now, but I don't see any obvious performance increase - 3d mark shows almost the same (+100 points), quake 3 hasn't changed a bit, windows xp only uses more ram, and page file grew bigger. 3D Max 5.0 and GTK Radiant seem to run faster though. UT 2003 runs the same way.

2 Questions here:

1 - Why did the page file usage increase if I doubled the RAM?

2 - Are there any games around that run differently with 256 and 512 mb?


McBugzz

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Pettytheft   01-16-2003 at 07:11:12 PM
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1. Set your paging file to a fixed size it will slightly increase performance for some tasks.

2. Two games off the top of my head are Everquest and Battlefield 1942, I'm sure there are others.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

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Pettytheft   01-16-2003 at 07:19:18 PM
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Woops, I didn't really answer your first question.

By default XP will assign the paging file to 1.5 times the ram. That's why it grew when you added memory.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

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dhlucke   01-17-2003 at 09:54:27 AM
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yes, there's a difference.

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mcbugzz   01-17-2003 at 12:22:19 PM
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WinXP doesn't let me to change the actual PF size. I mean, I change it in the System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance -> Page File size, but it totally ignores my limitations! If forbid PF usage at all, it uses it at 766 MB. If I set the limits 2-256 - still uses. Even 2-2 is neglected... still PF's. [Rebooting won't help, neither does logging on as an Administrator]

Why? Is this some kind of WinXP supacoolfeature?


McBugzz

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