More is Better?

[bigbeark]

I like fixing and using older computers. I have a 19 inch LCD monitor on which I stream video. I use 32-bit Ubuntu and Linux Mint almost exclusively.
I have a couple of slightly modern machines, one Core 2 Duo first generation and a couple of AM2 machines.

I also have several Socket A boxes, some P4 3GB boxes and a couple of Socket 939 in addition to Tualatin and older P3s.

Ubuntu never seems to use more than 300MB of RAM, according to the System Monitor.

I am watching video at 480P.

So is Ubuntu just really thrifty with RAM or would I need lots more if I had a bigger monitor/higher resolution or ran say Windows 7.

Other than being a little quieter and cooler running, the Core and AM2 machines don't offer me measurably better performance than my Socket A boards.

In my experience, Socket 478 is marginally faster than Socket A and not as cool-running, socket 939 runs cool but not any faster.

P3 is too slow for video on my setup, maybe its the slow SDRAM. My 1400 Soyo Socket A with DDR is vastly better than my TUSL2-C or KT7 or KT7A with SDRAM.

Can anyone actually use 4GB ram in a home computer?

If I were a gamer or needed big video I might need more, but I'm not and I don't.

Comments welcome!

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: More is Better?

478 is, for the most part, slower than socket A. It is a little more reliable tho.

Can you use 4GB RAM? Well, i almost used up 8GB once. 7.3 to be precise. Never went above that though and for the most part i work fine in 4GB, actually last year i borrowed the other 4GB to a friend for an indefinite time. I do fine on my laptops with 2GB too, but i don't tax them as much as i do the big machine.

When you start doing any "real" work (coding or *ahem* reversing something big, producing or editing music/graphics/video), or any type of CAD, RAM usage goes thru the roof. And i haven't mentioned running multiple systems in VMs.

[gerg]

Re: More is Better?

Ok for the most part ubuntu is thrifty with ram. Certain programs are hungry such as chromium that will take up more ram. 11.04 which I am running needs more memory a lot of people are claiming that there is a rather large "leak" in the OS somewhere. It is due out very soon. I wouldn't upgrade at this point to the new version for a month or two until that leak is fixed if you are running very low memory

I run 6GB of ram in the G71 asus laptop but I was once a gamer and my wife does photoshop on it where she claims it really rocks. So at this point in computers if you are not gaming or like you said rendering video i don't think there is a need for more then 3 GB of ram. If you are running vista you need more memory because the os is memory hungry. Windows 7 is easier on memory then vista even with the service packs.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: More is Better?

My 2 main computers are:

Intel mb Intel P 4 3.06GHZ Hyper-Threading, DDR2 1.5GB 667MHZ
Jou Jye 460 Watt psu Recapped and modded.

It has Windows XP Professional SP3. That PC was a gift from a friend


Asus mb Athlon XP 2200+ DDR1 1.5GB 357.5MHZ
Antec True Power 380Watt Recapped and fan-modded

Dual boot, Windows XP Professional SP3 and Windows 7 Ultimate

I find the RAM just enough for everything I do.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: More is Better?

Can anyone actually use 4GB ram in a home computer?

Very few people actually do.
Most of those that think they do, don't.
.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: More is Better?

I have 6GB in my rig, I'm constantly running 3 or 4 Guest O/S's in VirtualBox and eat 4GB or more depending on which O/S's I'm running, like for example windows machines I have to assign 2GB, Linux Machine 512MB to 1GB or more if I need to run something intensive, and with the Host eating atleast 1GB or more if I have multiple putty shells, web, applications and music playing in the back I can hit 2GB easily. So if I have 2 linux machine @ 512MB and windows machine @ 2GB and the host eating 2GB I could only run one or two more VM's before my system has to go heavy on the pagefile and hit my array hard.

But that's allocating memory space, in reality I'm probably using 3GB at any given time.

On the other hand, when I'm not running all that shit, I use about 1.3GB or less.

My mythtv box has athlon xp 2500+ with 1.5GB of ram and running an ubuntu base distro and according to TOP it has very little to no free memory. This is probably because of myth backend and frontend, but I haven't had a problem with performance.

Frankly it depends on what you're doing.

[gerg]

Re: More is Better?

My garage computer has 1 gig in it but it's only for doing research on my cars such as trying to figure out how to pull the steering wheel out of my rambler which was the original reason for putting it out there lol. My junker laptop has 3 gigs of ram but it has ubuntu on it and uses like 700 or so tops my main laptop like i said has 6 gigs two VM's i still don't hit 4 but both vm's are linux

[Scenic]

Re: More is Better?

i'm a "powersurfer" .. ie: i always have boatloads of tabs and windows with random stuff open.
when i had 2GB RAM in my main box, i ran into the RAM brick wall quite often (with firefox eating more than 1.2GB RAM). that was on XP.

i'm now on Win7 with 6GB DDR2 (2x 2GB + 2x 1GB) and it's a lot better.. but i'm thinking about upgrading to 8GB DDR3 as long as it's as cheap as it is now (my board supports both DDR2 and DDR3)

on the other hand.. i also do some gaming on this thing.. that's pretty much the only thing i really need that much RAM for. absolutely no fun when it hits the pagefile while playing GTA IV or EFLC...

when upgrading RAM or building a new box, i usually put in as much RAM as possible while it's current and cheap. i never ever want to run into the RAM price disaster with DDR2 again..
thinking "a 2GB kit is more than enough for now.. i can always upgrade later" turned out to be a totally wrong approach. that 2GB Kit (2x 1GB) cost me like 20euro brand new.
if i were to upgrade my DDR2 boxes now, i'd have to pay 40+ euro for a 2GB kit. the prices for bigger kits (4GB or 8GB) are SO high now that it's just not worth it anymore... fell flat on my face with that "upgrade later" idea

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: More is Better?

^ Tell me about it. I have 2x2GB and 2x1GB DDR2 in my system. I thought I'd get rid of that 2x1GB and put in another matching set of 2x2GB for 8GB total once I got some money together. I waited too long and now DDR2 prices are through the roof.

[dood]

Re: More is Better?

More is always better... do you need 8 gb of RAM right now? Nah, probably not. But, it's really nice to have the overhead available. My workstation has 8gb of RAM and a Core2Quad processor... It flies like nobody's business, and I know that I'll be able to keep this machine for the next several years without wanting to upgrade or swap parts around (barring hardware failure).

[Scenic]

Re: More is Better?

^ Tell me about it. I have 2x2GB and 2x1GB DDR2 in my system. I thought I'd get rid of that 2x1GB and put in another matching set of 2x2GB for 8GB total once I got some money together. I waited too long and now DDR2 prices are through the roof.

if i were to upgrade my DDR2 RAM and get the same 2x 2GB kit as i already have in there, i would have to pay 124.90eur (about 185US$!!!) right now.
back when i bought the first kit it was something around 60eur / about 89US$ :/

http://translate.google.com/translat...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

in comparison, a 2x 4GB DDR3-1333 kit costs around 60eur right now

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: More is Better?

Exactly the same situation here. Not to mention the 4GB already in there are some nice G.Skill with ultra low timings (4-4-4-12). All I can get now, for twice the price, is in the 5-x-x-x range.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: More is Better?

If you have 8 Gb and you're only using 2 or 3....
- You paid for something you aren't using.
- You are putting it through thermal cycles which is the silicon equivalent of wear.
- You are putting un-needed load on the mobo-RAM voltage regulators [which wears them out].
- You have more than doubled the possibility of a RAM failure.

And yeah,, I do it too,, cause I a geek..
But I don't recommend 'normal' PC users do it.
.

[Uranium-235]

Re: More is Better?

I like fixing and using older computers. I have a 19 inch LCD monitor on which I stream video. I use 32-bit Ubuntu and Linux Mint almost exclusively.
I have a couple of slightly modern machines, one Core 2 Duo first generation and a couple of AM2 machines.

I also have several Socket A boxes, some P4 3GB boxes and a couple of Socket 939 in addition to Tualatin and older P3s.

Ubuntu never seems to use more than 300MB of RAM, according to the System Monitor.

I am watching video at 480P.

So is Ubuntu just really thrifty with RAM or would I need lots more if I had a bigger monitor/higher resolution or ran say Windows 7.

windows 7 is more video intensive, if you're using shared memory, indeed this could be an issue (when it comes to 'higher resolutions' too), if you're using a seperate video card, probably not when it comes to the 'higher resolutions'. but in general 2gb is what I would recommend the minimum for windows 7

Other than being a little quieter and cooler running, the Core and AM2 machines don't offer me measurably better performance than my Socket A boards.

if you're using it for surfing the net with firefox or chrome, you probably would not see much difference, unless you're scrolling a page with 2+ flash items running, then you might see the serious difference, especially considering ff puts flash on the second thread/core, to which there is none with socket A (unless you're running two processors). If you were to start doing some serious gaming, you would see a BIG difference between Socket A cpus and core 2's/am2's (unless its one of those low sempron LE AM2's)

In my experience, Socket 478 is marginally faster than Socket A and not as cool-running, socket 939 runs cool but not any faster.

478 is less efficient then A, even though it has higher clock speeds. Socket A (athlon XP) did really well against those back then, except for maybe some of the latter HT 478 prescott chips. Ether way, the whole athlon xp series has serious heat issues, and no on-chip thermal protection. 939 clock speed is generally lower then both 478 and 462 (Socket A). but its efficiency makes up for it, there is a reason its the next generation after these cpu's

P3 is too slow for video on my setup, maybe its the slow SDRAM. My 1400 Soyo Socket A with DDR is vastly better than my TUSL2-C or KT7 or KT7A with SDRAM.

yes, it would be, double data rate, is well, will not double your speed but a significant improvement over SDR

Can anyone actually use 4GB ram in a home computer?

usually not, but i've seen some people with windows 7 boxes who run a ton of useless shit at startup and have reached 1.5-2gb or so AT STARTUP. After that, it reaches about ~3 during USE. Mind you, these people are rare cases

If I were a gamer or needed big video I might need more, but I'm not and I don't.

well I am, and my i7 system has 12gb of DDR3 1600

----------------------
other responses

If you have 8 Gb and you're only using 2 or 3....
- You paid for something you aren't using.
- You are putting it through thermal cycles which is the silicon equivalent of wear.
- You are putting un-needed load on the mobo-RAM voltage regulators [which wears them out].
- You have more than doubled the possibility of a RAM failure.

And yeah,, I do it too,, cause I a geek..
But I don't recommend 'normal' PC users do it.

sure if you have all your slots filled, keep in mind that, unless its registered/fb ram, normal ram has maximum allocatable amounts, that double with each generation

SDR-512M
DDR-1GB
DDR2-2GB
DDR3-4GB

(you can double these values for registered sticks-but only server/workstation boards support those)

so if you want 2gb on a SDR system (assuming you have a motherboard that actually supports it), you will need 4 full slots

modern motherboards can achieve larger amounts with less sticks

in the end, if your new computer came with 8gb (4x2), don't take the other sticks out just to 'decrease wear'. Its good to have some buffer for future use, though for most normal people, you probably won't get that far, and also you get a SLIGHT performance increase from dual/triple channel-depending on your CPU/Motherboard, and all the other small factors I don't give a damn about

in comparison, a 2x 4GB DDR3-1333 kit costs around 60eur right now

oh god don't remind me. My box has 12gb on and I7 (3x4gb Gskill ripjaws)

How much did each stick (1600) cost me a few months ago $189!

how much are these same sticks now? $49

i'm not going to put a percentage on that, I don't want to start crying

[pentium]

Re: More is Better?

I have three gigs in my main P4 system and I ahve yet to even hit 75% usage on the ram.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: More is Better?

I use 32-bit Ubuntu and Linux Mint almost exclusively.

A 32-bit OS can't address more than 4 Gb anyway which means even if you have more, it the system can't use it because the system 'can't see it'.
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: More is Better?

modern motherboards can achieve larger amounts with less sticks

The number of 'sticks' is not completely relevant.
It's the total number of IC chips on the sticks that causes the bulk of the problems I described.
- The newer RAM has more IC chips/module to achieve those larger sizes and therefore has more possible points of failure/module.

While there is some per-module power consumption the bulk of it is per IC chip.
More IC chips means you are using more power regardless if they added by means of another module or stacking chips on a higher capacity module.
- Granted:
DDR2 chips uses less power than DDR,,, and DDR3 uses less than DDR2 ...
... But that's not really relevant in discussing an upgrade to an existing system.
.

[Uranium-235]

Re: More is Better?

- The newer RAM has more IC chips/module to achieve those larger sizes and therefore has more possible points of failure/module.

wrong. DDR2/3 commonly has the same number of chips as DDR. DDR 2 and 3 have higher allocatable chips and do run more power efficiently. I have in my hands as I speak (type, whatever) as 1gb stick of DDr, and a 1gb stick of DDR2, both have 8 chips on each side. Each has the same 8x64M chips, which is the highest unregistered DDR will go, but not DDR2, which can have 8x128M chips (2gb DDR2, notice you will not find a single-sided stick, except registered? (which has its own memory controller, and sits between the CPU/board memory controller and surpassed the size limit)). it does this because DDR2 is designed this way, you won't find a unregistered memory controller that can't go past this limitation.

I have a stick of registered 1gb PC-133 with 16x64M BGA chips not really relevant but it looks cool

[PCBONEZ]

Re: More is Better?

No it doesn't,,
Looks like it but in actuality they are stacked chips.
- Go look at some module data sheets.

Also:
I've had 'double sided' RAM that only had chips on one side of the module.
That's because 'single sided' and 'double sided' is related to which pads on the fingers the chips are wired to and NOT the physical location of the chips on module as most people think.
'Single sided' and 'double sided' actually has no relationship to where the chips are located on the module.
'Single sided' and 'double sided' are slang which attempts to describe the bank layout but the slang doesn't always get it righ and it creates a misconception.
'Double sided' -usually- has chips on both sides but that is NOT A REQUIREMENT under any RAM specification.
.

[Uranium-235]

Re: More is Better?

yeah when you said IC I thought you ment chips, not 'integrated circuts'

you can only have a certain number of contacts per side going to the memory controller, wherever it may be. those double layer chips probably double the number of bga pads, half of which pass through the stick to the 'blank' side

once again I can't prove you wrong