Memory - Do we need more than 6 gig?

pparks1 said:

janno said:

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...

Petey7 said:

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.
Attachment 91061

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

janno said:

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.

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.

sygnus21 said:

...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.

profdlp said:

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?

pparks1 said:

profdlp said:

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".

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

profdlp said:

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

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.