How many meg ram....

[spldart]

Just built system currently in use...
Abit KR7A-133 266 mghz, amd athlon 1800+ xp, ati 7500 all in wonder, 1 stick pc2100 256meg ddr, dvdrom, cdrw, 2 hd's running Win XP. I do lots of video editing and compression work with file sizes up to 2 gig. A little gaming and general duty use.
How many Meg of ddr ram should I install in this MB to get most of the benefit practically attainable. I'm trying to decide if I wanna buy 1 or 2 sticks of 512meg ddr.

 

[Zlash]

I stick of 512 should do ya good.

<font color=red>:</font color=red> <font color=white>:</font color=white> <font color=blue>:</font color=blue>

 

[btvillarin]

If you do a lot of video editing, the more memory, the better. Get as much as you can, especially since prices are low.

Bryan

<A HREF="http://www.btvillarin.com" target="_new">btvillarin.com</A>
<font color=red>Site's back up! L33t!</font color=red>

 

[Toejam31]

512MB is the sweet spot for WinXP. But I'd suggest that you buy one more 256MB module. This way, if one module goes bad, your computer is still up and running. But with one 512MB module, if it develops a problem, you're completely down until the RAM is replaced.

Toejam31

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
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<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>

 

[spldart]

<font color=purple>As I said...I already have a 256 stick in there. If I add a 512 stick and it goes bad I can still run on the 256. This gives me a total of 768meg. Is this enough to turn off virtual swapping???</font color=purple>

Thanks for the help

 

[spldart]

<font color=blue>Oki Doki...I ordered enough DDR to run 1 gig on my new desktop. I'm gonna turn virtual memory off and see how well it does.</font color=blue>

 

[Zlash]

The system will always use virtual memory anyway, might as well leave it on hehe.

<font color=red>:</font color=red> <font color=white>:</font color=white> <font color=blue>:</font color=blue>

 

[flamethrower205]

My raid's so fast, it doesn't matter if I use virtual memory

My frog asked me for a straw...dunno what happened he's all over the place

 

[Toejam31]

I wouldn't suggest that you do that. If you intend to run graphic-intensive applications like Photoshop, you may quickly discover that having a paging file is a necessity. And some applications, such as games, often require the detection of a paging file or they will refuse to run or install. To paraphrase Zlash, (and the included link) the paging file is used regardless of how much physical RAM is in the system.

<A HREF="http://www.pureperformance.com/js/showtip.asp?id=22" target="_new">Virtual Memory(2000/XP)</A>

A better solution, IMHO, would be a set a custom size of 512MB-768MB for the paging file, and to enable the System Cache tweak in My Computer\Properties\Advanced\Performance\Advanced\Memory Usage.

Toejam31

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
__________________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>

 

[spldart]

Thanks guys. My new ram should show up wednesday. I'll come back to this post and try the tweaks. I'm trying to get a very responsive system out of this

 

[flamethrower205]

are the 2 hdd's on a raid?

My frog asked me for a straw...dunno what happened he's all over the place

 

[spldart]

No. They are just C and D. I wanted to do all my video editing and data serving out of D and have C just handle the os and programs installed.

 

[flamethrower205]

y not use raid, and parition to 2 drives?

My frog asked me for a straw...dunno what happened he's all over the place

 

[spldart]

Dunno...The drives are same brand but one is 20 gig and one is 40 gig. Can a raid still be done? How much benefit is there?

 

[Toejam31]

It is best to set up RAID with two identical drives, same manufacturer, same RPM speed. In your case, even if you managed to get the array functional, you'd lose 20 GB on one of the drives.

RAID 0 is faster in most respects than running a single hard drive, but it is not the way to go unless you have a reliable method of backing up your data, and have good working habits in that direction.

Read up on RAID <A HREF="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/index.htm" target="_new">here</A>, and satisfy your curiosity.

Toejam31

<font color=red>First Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=17935" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Devastating Dalek Destroyer</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
__________________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Some push the envelope. Some just lick it. And some can't find the flap."</font color=purple>