is RAM as important for a PC nowadays?

[NewJeffCT]

We were looking at new computers yet again over the weekend and I mentioned that one PC we saw had 6GB of RAM, while the other had 8GB. The salesman said that with intel Gen 2 or Gen 3 processors (this was a Pentium i5) the amount of RAM wasn't as important anymore.

Is this true, or is he blowing smoke?

Thanks

[liberal N proud]

1. Depending on what you are doing, the more RAM the better

Buy what you can afford in RAM.

If doing gaming, make sure the video is beefed up too.

[NewJeffCT]

6. I don't think we'll do much video editing

Other than the internets, the biggest use would be some heavy duty Excel or Access. Maybe with a nicer monitor with HD, we'll stream movies off of Netflix.

[Ash_F]

10. You should be fine with even 4gigs. /nt

[Major Nikon]

2. If you do any serious photography or especially video processing...

you very quickly figure out how important memory is.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

19. +1000 nt

[JesterCS]

3. for gaming, you want at least 8 GB, multimedia 4GB ( movies, web, etc ) n/t

[backscatter712]

16. Games in particular really test a computer's horsepower.

For recent games, you want a fact processor, lots of RAM, a high-powered graphics card.

[eppur_se_muova]

29. Obviously a non-Republican processor ...

so it can handle facts.

[d_r]

4. it can be a nuanced question

but in general, the more ram the better.

There comes points in which there are other bottle necks in a computer that adding extra ram wouldn't really improve much.

And it depends on what you want to do. For example, if you are doing a lot of video stuff or gaming, it could be that the video driver bottle necks it and the extra ram doesn't help = the i5's have what's called "sandy bridge" bus and it probably uses an integrated intel 4000 video card on the mother board.

You also can think about the speed of ram and if it is on one sim or two. It used to be it would be better to get it on one sim so that you could easily upgrade it later, but it could be that if the ram is one sim it is using single channel - so a 4 gig and a 2 gig running dual channel would be a significant jump up from 4 megs running on a single sim.

There are a lot of variables, and for most run of the mill things today it probably won't matter, but he's blowing a little bit of smoke too because more is always better. The thing is, chances are they probably both had the same ram speed, same HD rate, same video card, etc. so 8 gigs would be better than 6 but would it be enough to notice? Who knows, and some of it is subjective.

I remember upgrading a 386 to 8 MEGS of ram and the guy I bought the ram from (8 1 meg sims) said "that's all the memory you will ever need, ever." So there's that, you are always fighting the future.

If you can play with them both a little bit that is probably the best insight you'll get.

This is all just IMHO and I don't really know what I'm talking about frankly.

[NewJeffCT]

7. Thanks

I think that was something like what the guy said.

thanks

[d_r]

9. for full disclosure

I should sat that I am typing this on an old dual core pentium with 2 gigs of ram that used to be a laptop but now is cracked and held together with packing tape attached to an external monitor and usb hard drive and usb keyboard/mouse, so honestly I'm thinking whatever you get is going to be freaking awesome.

[Fumesucker]

13. We need a "rattiest working computer" competition

I bet I could place pretty well, sounds like you'd do OK too.

[d_r]

14. that's a fun idea

you should see what I had running back in my college days - just a mother board hanging out there; I was messing with it so much I got too lazy to put it back in the case.

[EOTE]

18. FYI, Sandy Bridge is an architecture, and there are i5s of a number of different architectures.

Westmere, Nehalem, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge all had i5s.

Also, in order to run in dual channel (or triple channel), you'll need to have matching DIMMS, so a 4 and a 2 wouldn't work. I'd imagine for most purposes, the 6GB machine running triple channel will provide superior throughput to the 8GB machine running in dual channel.

[d_r]

31. the ram

I called it a "bus" but that's probably because I don't understand the more modern systems. What I was thinking was that both the laptops probably had the same architecture. But I shouldn't assume that I guess.

About the ram. they way I always knew it, that they had to be matching in each slot. But I've seen some newer ones come with one 4 meg and one 2 meg, so I figured that they got passed that and they didn't have to match anymore, but that was probably a wrong assumption too.

[EOTE]

38. They only need to be matched if you're running, dual, triple or quad channel.

Otherwise, you can mix and match all you want.

[derby378]

5. You can NEVER have too much RAM

If you do any work with high-definition video, for example, you're going to want all the sweet, delicious RAM you can cram under the hood.

[Chan790]

8. In addition to everything everybody else has said...

it's been my experience that it's cheaper to buy RAM myself and upgrade than to buy pre-installed. It's not hard to install, no harder than putting the cartridges into an old 8-bit Nintendo.

[pscot]

25. I just put 8 megs in my laptop

for $40. RAM is cheap. Doubling the RAM did give me a performance boost.

[Taverner]

11. Yes and yes

At times more important than processor speed - but not always

[HopeHoops]

12. FUCK yes it's important. I'm maxed out at 2GB on this laptop and nearly peg it regularly.

My server has 24GB and that's quite adequate (for now), but the more you can stuff in a machine the better because M$ will find a way to chew through it all eventually.

It's cheaper to get the RAM when you buy the machine than to upgrade later. Most machines require matched DIMMs so you can't just tack on another chip - you have to fully replace the ones you have. And if you're looking at a Win8 machine, the extra 2GB is well worth the cost.

[SteveG]

15. Blowen smoke

Win 7 32 bit only uses a max of 3 Gig Ram. Win 7 64 bit can use up to 16 Gig. (I could be wrong on the max. it could be more) More RAM is always better, since it reduces the number of times the processor has to access the hard drive for information. RAM access is always faster than Disk access.

[EOTE]

17. RAM is very important, but it's so cheap now that it's very easy to get all you need.

The computer you saw with 6GB is most likely running in 3 channel mode (3x2). The 8GB one is most likely running in dual channel mode (2x4). You'll most likely get better memory bandwidth in 3 channel mode, but either of those computers probably have more RAM than you'll need for a while. I typically recommend 4GB depending on what the computer will be used for. I find that very few people are bottlenecked by 4GB of RAM. Those that are typically do LOTS of intensive multitasking.

[hobbit709]

21. I'm running an 8-core OC'd to 4 GHz with 8Gb RAM

right now I'm on DU, listening to music, running 3 different folding@home processes and burning a DVD. Running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit and I'm only using 25% cpu cycles and 1.3Gb RAM. so I've got lots of headroom.

[NewJeffCT]

27. how about a quad core?

so, 8GB of RAM 4x2?

[EOTE]

40. Multicore processors all have access to the same reserves of RAM.

So you really shouldn't base the amount of RAM that you have upon the number of cores you have. I'd imagine that for most users, 4GB of RAM is sufficient even if you're using a quad core. Of course, for most users a quad core isn't necessary and a fast dual core would suffice. But then again, most users can't really differentiate between various dual and quad cores, and Intel's naming convention doesn't really help that. I.E., i3 = 2 cores, 4 threads i5 = 4 cores, 4 threads, i7 4 cores, 8 threads.

[hobbit709]

20. 64 bit processors can use more RAM for one

Programs have gotten more and more bloated. I don't think anyone writes tight code anymore. even if it could be written better.

[benld74]

22. LOAD it up with AS MUCH as the motherboard can HOLD!!!

[Jersey Devil]

23. I have 7 core with 12 gigs RAM

Everything moves as fast as lightening

[Initech]

35. 7 core?

Most CPUs are dual core (i3), quad core (i5, i7, Phenom II, FX-4300), hex core (Phenom II x6, i7-3930K, FX-6300), or octo-core (FX-8350). No seven core CPUs exist that I know of.

[Jersey Devil]

36. Intel Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz - pardon

bought last January - I am technically challenged, sorry.

[Initech]

39. That's a quad core CPU.

[Initech]

24. Depends what you are going to be doing with the computer.

If you're going to be playing games or just doing simple tasks - no. If you are going to be editing photos or video yes.

[sendero]

26. Unless you are doing..

... hardcore gaming or video work, 6 gig is likely to be plenty. I only have 4 gig and I haven't "ran out" (gone to virtual ram i.e. disk) yet.

[Angleae]

28. If you're not using a 64 bit OS, anything over 4GB is wasted.

And even if you are using a 64 bit OS, the software you are using would have to be written to take advantage of more than 2-3GB (games usually arent').

[eppur_se_muova]

30. With each new release of Windows, the minimum amount of RAM increases ...

Windows 3.0 ran in 384K

Windows 3.1 required 1MB

Windows 95 required 4MB for minimum performance

Windows 98 required 8-16MB

Windows ME required 32MB

Windows XP required 64-128MB (Home vs Pro)

Windows Vista required 512MB

Windows 7 required 1-2GB (32- or 64-bit)

Windows 8 requires the same as Windows 7, so perhaps the madness has finally ended. Maybe your new computer will be good for a couple of Windows updates without adding RAM. If you're just doing pedestrian word processing, email, and Web browsing, you may never need anything better. Only real resource-hogging applications need more than 1GB each.

[ElboRuum]

34. That's a false number...

Minimum RAM for Windows releases generally follow the lower end of RAM in your average prebuilt at the time of its release. Windows Vista actually needs at least 1G to run well. Windows 7 can be run reasonably well on machines which run on XP because it's really Vista with a lot of the graphically intensive OS extras ripped out. XP actually needs at least 512MB to be truly responsive. Win 95 and 98 are practically the same OS. Why does Win98 need 2 to 4 times the RAM? It doesn't.

However, the relative cheapness of RAM these days makes it obvious to err on the side of more rather than less.

[Scuba]

32. "No one needs more than 640K of RAM." -- Bill Gates

And hey, Bill's an expert! Of course he did say this back in about 1982 or so.

[jmowreader]

33. Answer that applies to either platform

Yes it matters.

Both Windows and Mac OS use virtual memory, where the OS uses a piece of your hard drive as swap space for your RAM, so if you use up all your RAM - easy to do...the OS uses some, Office uses some, your browser, etc.- you'll be running off slow disk and not fast RAM.

If you like yourself, you'll put as much in as it will hold.

[SmittynMo]

37. RAm will always be important to the way your PC acts.

Newer operating systems involve more code, to do more things. The more you do, the more you need RAM. The most important reason to over purchase RAM is to eliminate paging(swapping of data). If your machine is paging, it can slow up your machine considerably. So the bottom line is: The more RAM, the better the performance.

[MineralMan]

41. Very important.

I'm tired of the "Windows needs to increase your virtual memory" message box on my old 1GB XP machine.