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  • Tradesman...

    while browsing these boards i've seen you state you use 8gbs ram. what are the advantages of 8gbs over 4gbs? i mostly game and occasionally encode movies. are the relaxed timings and lower speed required for 8 gbs worth the trade off?


    (i'm using amd phII 955@3.8ghz and G.S. ddr 3 pc16000 2.2gbs, msi 770-c45)


  • #2
    I know it states for TMan, but here's to give you an idea.

    Higher frequency and lower timings help with gaming with regards to quicker access times, faster processing, etc.

    Increase in capacity (8GB) does not particularly help with gaming since it does not require such a large load. Additional GBs help with large loads such as video/audio encoding/editing where lots of information is being processed at one time. It will reduce lag to allow smooth processing, otherwise if you lack memory it can take longer and possibly not process correctly.

    Since you encode movies, you may need the extra GB to reduce lag. But when reducing frequency, you can also tighten timings to compensate for loss of speed. With fine tuning, many times actual speeds may be just the same since timings are tighter with lower memory frequency so essentially you do not lose much if anything at all.

    Thank you
    GSKILL SUPPORT

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    • #3
      Chef,


      First, a quick answer...Yes...but the hardware will determine if you need to relax timings or the RAMs speed....and call me an Intel bigot if you wish, but over the years, by far, the majority of the problems I run into with getting RAM to speed at stock settings or better comes at the hands of AMD, sort of like if your a bartender - would you rather mix a Seven Steps to Heaven (AMD) cocktail (9 ingredients and an excellent cocktail) or pour a shot of Patron (Intel). I seldom ever have to relax the timings unless a client specifies an off brand or lower end mobo or RAM or specifically wants AMD.

      I started in computers in 1980 with Big Iron (mainframes), expanded to mini's and then to micros while in the Air Force, and first began noticing what RAM increases do for speed in the mini. I was running a Honeywell mini at HQs and managed to up our systems RAM from 8 to 12 MB (yes, megabytes) with EOY fall out money, and it was amazing the difference. We were running appr 30 users, were able to expand the numbers and were still quicker than before.

      With most any system, a RAM upgrade is an easy way to speed things up (along with a good system cleanup) without getting too technical, i.e. OCing.

      I've advocated (and will continue to) as much RAM (or a little more) than you think you can use. Almost every system I get a call on (that I didn't build) is generally a store bought, off the shelf thing. Almost as a rule when people bought the system, it was 'sold' to them, 512MB, 1GB, 2GB of RAM with the sales people telling the customer - 'Yep, that's more RAM than you'll ever need' - then they sell stuff like Norton, MacAfee, Office, etc - all RAM hungry apps.

      Regardless of what MS says about minimum amount of RAM needed to run an OS, whether it be XP, Vista or Win7, to be realistic you need to double that 'minimum amount' to even run the OS in an effective manner - then add in something like Virus/spyware/firewall (3rd party), they generally state the system needs a minumum of xxx RAM. It alll adds up quick. Take a look at the lower right corner of your screen - you may have icons for numerous programs, all of which load a small part of themselves into RAM at startup (and basically enables you to have one of those programs to open a half second faster than if you open from a screen icon or the start manu (basically wasted RAM), many of the others are Memory resident programs (fully loaded into your RAM).
      As GSkill Tech said (thanks), for systems strictly for gaming, 2 or 4GB is generally fine, and I build a lot of gaming systems......but....I build far more high end systems for business/goverment and home/business use, most of those are used heavily by wide ranging multi-taskers (I'm also a strong advocate of multiple monitors).
      I try and figure not only what people will be doing with the system when they get it, but also what they will be doing 6-9-12 months down the road, I mean why not address that now..when we build a system, than go back 5-6 months later and upgrade the RAM, another month later to upgrade the drive(s) (multiple drives is another item for me, as is RAID (0 preferred), another month or two later a new video card, etc, etc. Rather than do that, my approach is to make the client happy for a fair amount of time, set them up with a system that their friends and co-workers will want (and for me to build it), plus give them the room to advance their own computing prowess and program expansion to new things.
      Also, just look around in the stores even, 4-8GB systems are far more common place than even 6 months ago, 64bit OS's are rapidly gaining market share, and they love RAM, though at this point, 8GB is about the most users will use...and many won't even come close.
      Currently my primary system is based on the GB EP45-UD3R (love their Ultra boards, used be (and still use) an ASUS guy for high end builds), running a 9650 at 3.6 24/7 (upping to 4GHz for certain apps and work i.e. simulation software, and a few other proprietary programs for clients), 8GB 1066 RAM, a pair of 128GB SSds (1- Vista 64 Ultimate, the other Win7 64 Ultimate) along with what I deem essential apps only, 2 750 Barracudas in Raid 0 (data and non-essential programs), a 1T Barracuda for additional storage, a pair of combo burners, BFG 285 OCE, along with 28" and 24" LCDs.
      MY computing varies quite a bit from video editing, development/evaluation of simulation software, CAD, GIS, graphics work, management systems, and the ho-hum WP, my businesses accounting/proposals, invoices, research, news, TV, Radio, etc.

      Secondary is near identical powered by a Q6600 at 3.6, also have a couple servers, laptop and generally at least 1-2 other systems running as demos/for sale items, (i.e. a SLI systems for gamers to look at, play with to get an idea of the difference between SLi and single card.

      Oh, and generally, there's no real need to relax timings, but the key is to have good RAM and a good mobo, I've run any number of different sets of RAM on my secondary system from 667-1200 with nary a problem from 2GB to 8GB, all generally at stock timings and in most cases have been able to tighten them up. Biggest problem I ever had was getting 16GB of Patriots Gamer Series to run, and trying to pair up 8GB of Crucial (4x2) with 4GB of Crucial (2x2)...that was a trip (read about 3 hours of playing with timings and voltages).


      Pls offer comments on support I provide, HERE, in order to help me do a better job here:

      Tman

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      • #4
        ty guys good info. i'll stick to 4gb for now but in a few month's i'll go up to 8gb.

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        • #5
          my gskill ram is over a month old. it's running great so i'll just order another 4gb set. i usually always save the original packaging just in case. could you explain the difference between "ganged" and "unganged"? i know it is either 64 bit or 128 bit, but is that = dual channel or single?

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          • #6
            It all depends on who you talk to, to some it's simply dual channel (ganged) vs single channel (unganged) and have heard it used on 'Intel' based boards, but it's actually more of an AMD thing where Ganged allows access to all cores where Unganged gives a stick individually to each core - depending on a setup and what the user is doing the unganged can be faster i.e. mutitasking. Ganged may be better in gaming or single threaded use (and yes it does look at 64 unganged opposed 128 ganged access.



            (Chef) Sorry about my previous post, about returns etc, (I deleted it) was meant for for a post in the DDR2 boards, had to many windows going.

            Tman
            Last edited by Tradesman; 09-05-2009, 05:42 PM.


            Pls offer comments on support I provide, HERE, in order to help me do a better job here:

            Tman

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            • #7
              Won't be so accurate as trademan above, but if I were you I'd stick to 4GB for good. Switch the sticks only to larger size keeping only 1 memory in each controller lets say when DDR3 4GB sticks are faster or next gen is in doorway. although to get actual improvement you need the CPU to be able to bunch through that speed otherwise it's always waist.

              2cents
              "Sex is like freeware, shareware on weekends. When do we get to open source?" -TwL

              Thanks AMD/ATI for banning legit customers who asks questions of your screw-ups:
              http://i45.tinypic.com/30j0daq.png

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