Memory - Do we need more than 6 gig?

[janno]

but someone told me (i think it was Sygnus) that this speeds are not reached by the MoBO, and therefor not neccesary. and with a cache of 8-8-8 it`s not neccesary better/faster than 6GB RAM with a cache of 7-7-7.

That was me that told you that tidbit of information. It's not necessarily that your motherboard won't reach that speed....it's that your CPU is not designed by default to reach that kind of speed....overclocking would be necessary to get up to that area.

Let me try to explain and I'll use my computer as an example. I have an Intel Q9550 quad core CPU which runs natively at 2.83Ghz. The Q9550 has a front side bus speed of 1333Mhz.....and because the Intel chips's are quad pumped..if you take 1333 and divide by 4, you get the true speed of 333Mhz. Now, looking at the specs of an Intel Q9550 shows that it has an 8.5x multiplier...so when you multiply 333 x 8.5 = 2.830Ghz.

So, for my computer, my motherboard takes DDR2 RAM. And remember, DDR means double data rate RAM. So, if you take my Q9550 native bus speed of 333mhz and multiply that by 2 (for double data rate), you end up with an effective speed of 667mhz. So, with a 1,333Mhz FSB motherboard and a Q9550 at stock clock speeds (333Mhz x 8.5), the RAM will run at 667Mhz. Therefore, buying DDR2-800 or DDR2-1000, or DDR2-1200...means that while the RAM "could" run that fast, it's going to continue running at 667Mhz. Thus, unless you plan to overclock and manipulate the machine, being able to run at 800, 1000 or 1200 provides no benefit whatsoever....as the RAM speeds are determined by your FSB speeds.

So, when I built my machine DDR2-667 would have provided the maximum speed that my board and CPU would use by default. However, knowing I wanted to overclock my box a bit, I instead went with DDR2-800 to provide some room before my RAM couldn't handle it.

Now, I started to experiment a bit with overclocking of my CPU. First thing I did was increase the FSB speed to 360 (from 333). With an 8.5 multiplier, that means my overall speed became (360 x 8.5) 3.060Ghz of my CPU. And with the RAM, it went to (360 x 2) 720Mhz. And things were fine here and everything ran fine.

So, I wanted to push things a bit more, so I set my FSB speed to 400 and set my mutiplier from 8.5 simply to 8.0. Thererefore, my CPU was running at 400 x 8 = 3,200Mhz and my RAM was running at it's true native speed of 400 x 2 = 800Mhz.

So, had I done what lots of others did and bought DDR2-1066 simply because I thought it would be so much faster than DDR2-800...I would have had to have overclocked my CPU to 4.264Ghz to actually get the performance of 1066 out of it.
(1066 / 2 = 533). And 533 x 8.0 (lowest multiplier I could use) = 4,264Ghz

So, while DDR2 1066 seems faster than DDR2 800..it totally depends on other factors to determine how fast it would actually be.

ok, maybe you can take al look at my specs, and tell me what DDR3 ram i need?

i`m now going for 1866Mhz...

 

[fseal]

Well your memory bus is 1333 so in reality you only need to buy 1333 ram if you don't plan on overclocking.

However in the more is always better world even if it isn't (I say that with 12 gig of ram ) you may be hard pressed to find any quality ram company selling 1333 ram because NOONE would buy it when 1600 and higher are being sold by everyone else.

So that ram is fine, but as I said before, if the 1600 version of that same ram is a better price I'd get it because you'll be running at 1333 not 1600 or 1866 or 2000 or anything else... (Well unless your into liquid nitrogen overclocking)

A good thing to do is DL the PDF for the motherboard manual and check the lists of verified ram modules too...

 

[Internet Badass]

I use 4 gigs and I don't recall exceeding 50% very often. Only when running Chrome, WLMM, WMP, WLPG, Ares (P2P program), and Audacity all at the same time. It probably hits 50% without all of them open, but when using WLMM, I usually have all of them going at the same time. Right now I have a few tabs open in Chrome and WMP going and it's at 31%. So I would say at the this point in time more than 6GB probably isn't necessary for the home user.

Just for fun I'm going to try opening every program I currently have installed and see what results are on ram usage

EDIT: 36 programs in use and 54% RAM usage. I'm guessing the programs built in to windows not using much would be the reason why.
View attachment 91061

With fallout 3 and ten mods, I usually hit around 70-80%

 

[sygnus21]

ok, maybe you can take al look at my specs, and tell me what DDR3 ram i need?

i`m now going for 1866Mhz...

janno,

Simply put, 12gig of 1866MHz RAM is a waste of money if you’re not planning on overclocking your system. The RAM will not run at those speeds on a stock system.

As to whether you should get 12gig, that’s been answered and debated starting here… http://www.sevenforums.com/overclocking-case-mods/347-show-us-your-rig-190.html#post892292. In the end it comes down to funds and (and the clearence issue of your CPU cooler) You just need to decide if it’s worth it.

With that said, I created this thread as not to hijack the "Show Us Your Rig" thread and would like to keep this thread on the topic of whether we need more than 6gig of RAM.

Thanks.

 

[Jaxryley]

8 gig 1066 here and I do have a Win 7 64 bit install on another HD but prefer to use my 32 bit bit install.

So what to do with that extra ram that Windows 32 bit can't use? For starters I create a ramdrive of around 3.6 gig using that unusable ram.

Besides setting Sandboxie's storage folder to the ramdrive I also copy/paste an nLited XP VM over there.

Want to see speed then give a go. (and up to you if you wanna)

 

[pparks1]

ok, maybe you can take al look at my specs, and tell me what DDR3 ram i need?

i`m now going for 1866Mhz...

Somebody else already said it but 1333 will be your native speed. And 1600 will give you some room to increase your FSB speed. That's what I would go with and save some dollars.

 

[profdlp]

With a Core i7 triple-channel system, 6GB was the sweet spot for me. 3GB wasn't going to cut it and 12GB would only have meant that I spent another $200 for bragging rights.

I built my current system a year ago and at that same time built a nearly identical system for my housemate. Her MB has six memory slots and mine has only three. When I built them I wondered if I was going to regret not having a cheaper upgrade path should I want 12GB down the road, since it would cost less to add three more 2GB sticks (like she could with her board), than it would to yank my three sticks out and replace them with a trio of 4GB sticks. I shouldn't have worried since neither one of us has ever felt limited by the 6Gb we currently have.

...In the end it comes down to funds...

I think that's the key point.

If you are fabulously wealthy, why not go for it? If you need the extra RAM for a specific purpose, then the key word there is "need". If you don't have a specific need for outrageous amounts of RAM and don't have outrageous amounts of money, spending your dough elsewhere makes more sense.

 

[pparks1]

If you are fabulously wealthy, why not go for it? If you need the extra RAM for a specific purpose, then the key word there is "need". If you don't have a specific need for outrageous amounts of RAM and don't have outrageous amounts of money, spending your dough elsewhere makes more sense.

Even if you are wealthy, if you really don't need it...why not keep your extra funds for something that you do have a need for?

 

[profdlp]

If you are fabulously wealthy, why not go for it? If you need the extra RAM for a specific purpose, then the key word there is "need". If you don't have a specific need for outrageous amounts of RAM and don't have outrageous amounts of money, spending your dough elsewhere makes more sense.

Even if you are wealthy, if you really don't need it...why not keep your extra funds for something that you do have a need for?

I do not think you understand the meaning of "fabulously wealthy". :sarc:

Do you think Bill Gates is sitting around peeing his pants worrying about the extra couple hundred bucks he dropped on RAM?

 

[pparks1]

I do not think you understand the meaning of "fabulously wealthy". :sarc:

Do you think Bill Gates is sitting around peeing his pants worrying about the extra couple hundred bucks he dropped on RAM?

No, but why not put that few hundred bucks into racing fuel for your european sports car and then take it out to the local drive and wind it out. Even when fabulously wealthy if you don't need X amount of RAM...it doesn't make great sense to simply buy it.

 

[Mellon Head]

With that said, I created this thread as not to hijack the "Show Us Your Rig" thread and would like to keep this thread on the topic of whether we need more than 6gig of RAM.

Thanks.

In that spirit, I do believe it is nice to have more than 4 GB. My board is dual channel, so I usually run with 8 GB. There is no "real" benefit from using more than 4 GB for me, as almost nothing I run uses that much, but I find that my system is a little snappier with 8 GB because of Win 7's prefetching feature.

If you can easily afford more than 6 GB, then by all means do it, but it should be the last system component that you buy. Get all of the nice important goodies first, then add those extra GB of RAM.

 

[Dalek]

i got 4 gigs,and its more than enough 4 me...

 

[profdlp]

... Even when fabulously wealthy if you don't need X amount of RAM...it doesn't make great sense to simply buy it.

I was right. You do not understand what it means to be fabulously wealthy. Or even moderately rich.

People spend what 12GB of RAM costs on a lousy wallet:

Burberry Wallets & Small Leather Goods

Let me put it another way. Some people have lots of dough and never part with a penny. They live on macaroni and cheese and die with millions of dollars in the bank. Some people are really into spending money and always get the best, even if they don't need it.

Since this is a tech forum and there are lots of serious computer enthusiasts here, I would be willing to bet that if we had the money a lot of us would build a far better rig than we need. I would also bet that a lot of us have already spent the money for a rig which greatly exceeds our needs. If some rich old geek died and left us all ten million bucks a lot of us would probably get something like this:

Dream Machine 2010 | Maximum PC

The original point I made was that if you have the money, why not go for it. I remember going down to the store and buying four 16MB sticks of RAM in the day when 8MB was standard and 16MB was considered great. It cost me $400. 4GB seems enough for most people these days, but the next "big deal" game or app may require much more.

Finally, try as I might, I can't see Bill Gates looking over his checkbook balance and saying to himself "Well, it's either the RAM or the racing fuel. Decisions, decisions..."

 

[pparks1]

... Even when fabulously wealthy if you don't need X amount of RAM...it doesn't make great sense to simply buy it.

I was right. You do not understand what it means to be fabulously wealthy. Or even moderately rich.

That's right as neither of those terms describe me today....nor are they likely to ever be accurate in the future.

 

[Aphelion]

Although RAM can be an important factor for certain applications, I think that the average user is still well served with 4GBs (even 3GBs for a 32bit OS). I have both (4GB for 64bit and 3GB for 32bit) and I hardly ever notice a page fault. That leads me to believe that there is enough RAM for what I am doing (which is bread and butter stuff). Even during heavy video editing which keeps all my 4 cores running at about 75%, there are no page faults.

While the following concerns very few users it's an interesting side note as to how memory is being used in the music recording/sequencing world these days.

Over the past decade there's been a development called "virtual instruments", these range from software recreations of Classic synthesizers to full sampled orchestras and grand pianos. Multi-sampling takes each note of a grand piano and samples it played at different velocities, that's each note on a grand piano...each multi-sampled note averages 30 or 35MB, to get maximum real time response the whole instrument is loaded into RAM. Full orchestra sampled instruments can be loaded individually. I have one of the older sampled orchestra libraries and it's folder reads 14.2GB. I can load any part of the orchestra needed.

Anyway... If you have a 32-bit system with 12GB memory... each virtual instrument can load into it's own 3GB memory space, the instruments are played from the main recording program by virtual MIDI ports. The recording program, (Cubase, Sonar, Pro Tools...etc) resides along with the OS in the base 3GB memory.

Virtual instruments are being ported to 64-bit and and will soon be able to run within the recording program and not need the virtual MIDI ports.

In the near future 32GB memory will be standard on machines being used for studio use.

Here's some virtual instruments.

Native Instruments Classic recreation of the Prophet 5 synth.




Addictive Drums, full studio set with adjustable mics, 24-bit samples.




Native Instruments Kontakt, a virtual instruments rack.
It has three instruments from the East-West Gold symphonic library loaded.




Ap

 

[profdlp]

... Even when fabulously wealthy if you don't need X amount of RAM...it doesn't make great sense to simply buy it.

I was right. You do not understand what it means to be fabulously wealthy. Or even moderately rich.

That's right as neither of those terms describe me today....nor are they likely to ever be accurate in the future.

Then we have something in common.

 

[janno]

Although RAM can be an important factor for certain applications, I think that the average user is still well served with 4GBs (even 3GBs for a 32bit OS). I have both (4GB for 64bit and 3GB for 32bit) and I hardly ever notice a page fault. That leads me to believe that there is enough RAM for what I am doing (which is bread and butter stuff). Even during heavy video editing which keeps all my 4 cores running at about 75%, there are no page faults.

While the following concerns very few users it's an interesting side note as to how memory is being used in the music recording/sequencing world these days.

Over the past decade there's been a development called "virtual instruments", these range from software recreations of Classic synthesizers to full sampled orchestras and grand pianos. Multi-sampling takes each note of a grand piano and samples it played at different velocities, that's each note on a grand piano...each multi-sampled note averages 30 or 35MB, to get maximum real time response the whole instrument is loaded into RAM. Full orchestra sampled instruments can be loaded individually. I have one of the older sampled orchestra libraries and it's folder reads 14.2GB. I can load any part of the orchestra needed.

Anyway... If you have a 32-bit system with 12GB memory... each virtual instrument can load into it's own 3GB memory space, the instruments are played from the main recording program by virtual MIDI ports. The recording program, (Cubase, Sonar, Pro Tools...etc) resides along with the OS in the base 3GB memory.

Virtual instruments are being ported to 64-bit and and will soon be able to run within the recording program and not need the virtual MIDI ports.

In the near future 32GB memory will be standard on machines being used for studio use.

Here's some virtual instruments.

Native Instruments Classic recreation of the Prophet 5 synth.

View attachment 91200


Addictive Drums, full studio set with adjustable mics, 24-bit samples.

View attachment 91198


Native Instruments Kontakt, a virtual instruments rack.
It has three instruments from the East-West Gold symphonic library loaded.

View attachment 91199


Ap

finally someone that has the answer to my original questions (http://www.sevenforums.com/overclocking-case-mods/347-show-us-your-rig-189.html#post891559 and http://www.sevenforums.com/overclocking-case-mods/347-show-us-your-rig-191.html#post892959).

and yet everyone said that 12GB would be a waste of money...

i`m glad you replied, so now i know i`m not buying unnassecary RAM i (according to most here) dont need.

so i`m now definitely going for the 12GB, just like i originaly planned...

Thanx!

 

[janno]

Although RAM can be an important factor for certain applications, I think that the average user is still well served with 4GBs (even 3GBs for a 32bit OS). I have both (4GB for 64bit and 3GB for 32bit) and I hardly ever notice a page fault. That leads me to believe that there is enough RAM for what I am doing (which is bread and butter stuff). Even during heavy video editing which keeps all my 4 cores running at about 75%, there are no page faults.

While the following concerns very few users it's an interesting side note as to how memory is being used in the music recording/sequencing world these days.

Over the past decade there's been a development called "virtual instruments", these range from software recreations of Classic synthesizers to full sampled orchestras and grand pianos. Multi-sampling takes each note of a grand piano and samples it played at different velocities, that's each note on a grand piano...each multi-sampled note averages 30 or 35MB, to get maximum real time response the whole instrument is loaded into RAM. Full orchestra sampled instruments can be loaded individually. I have one of the older sampled orchestra libraries and it's folder reads 14.2GB. I can load any part of the orchestra needed.

Anyway... If you have a 32-bit system with 12GB memory... each virtual instrument can load into it's own 3GB memory space, the instruments are played from the main recording program by virtual MIDI ports. The recording program, (Cubase, Sonar, Pro Tools...etc) resides along with the OS in the base 3GB memory.

Virtual instruments are being ported to 64-bit and and will soon be able to run within the recording program and not need the virtual MIDI ports.

In the near future 32GB memory will be standard on machines being used for studio use.

Here's some virtual instruments.

Native Instruments Classic recreation of the Prophet 5 synth.

View attachment 91200


Addictive Drums, full studio set with adjustable mics, 24-bit samples.

View attachment 91198


Native Instruments Kontakt, a virtual instruments rack.
It has three instruments from the East-West Gold symphonic library loaded.

View attachment 91199


Ap

could you explain to me how i can put each VST in its own Ram module?

Thnx!

 

[Buyerchoice]

[/QUOTE]the 12 GB Corsair Dominator GT (1866Mhz) still sounds great, but someone told me (i think it was Sygnus) that this speeds are not reached by the MoBO, and therefor not neccesary.[/QUOTE]

Your Core I7 930 uses the Intel Quickpath Interconnect at 4.8 GT/s which is Quad pumped and has a bandwidth of 19200 MB per second or 19.2 GB per second. It is listed under computer buses and QPI in the link below.

Even DDR3-1066 MHz triple channel RAM has a bandwidth of 25.6 GB per second so their is no benefit with going any higher.

All the bandwidths are listed here.

List of device bit rates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[janno]

the 12 GB Corsair Dominator GT (1866Mhz) still sounds great, but someone told me (i think it was Sygnus) that this speeds are not reached by the MoBO, and therefor not neccesary.[/QUOTE]

Your Core I7 930 uses the Intel Quickpath Interconnect at 4.8 GT/s which is Quad pumped and has a bandwidth of 19200 MB per second or 19.2 GB per second. It is listed under computer buses and QPI in the link below.

Even DDR3-1066 MHz triple channel RAM has a bandwidth of 25.6 GB per second so their is no benefit with going any higher.

All the bandwidths are listed here.

List of device bit rates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/QUOTE]


i`m now going for 12GB of 1600Mhz, with a 7 cache.

this should be sufficient...