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General discussion

Actual Memory Upgrade Experience?????

Jun 1, 2005 10:24AM PDT

I have 512mb of ddr pc3200 ram. Seems prices dropped by 30-50% in the past 2 months ((right after I finally built my rig)) and now I am wondering if more ram would help or actually be a waste of money.

With an AMD-939 motherboard and a 3000 Athlon cpu, I am very satisfied with current performance but I do notice lags when multi-tasking.

From a general read over the past few years, I see many folks touting more Ram all the time but I would like to hear about the "specific" improvements that were actually experienced and where a cut-off point might actually be.

I'd like to do some video editing or large file transfers while editing a video file while browsing my email. Will such multi-tasking "necessarily" cause copying glitches or will ram overcome all? And if so, how much?

Thanks///bobbo.

Discussion is locked

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My standing example.
Jun 1, 2005 10:33AM PDT

2 identical machines. A DVD rendering of a production (same) and one machine would perform the task in 6 hours. It had 512MB RAM. The other had 1GB RAM and finished 5 minutes earlier.

Hmm, so we swapped RAM with each machine. The now with 512MB RAM finished in 6 hours and the one with 1 GB finishes (again) 5 minutes sooner.

That is a sort of video editing so be sure you think this sort of payback is worth it.

-> The real payoff is bragging rights. So it's worth it.

Bob

PS> Doom 3 does go from level to level faster with 1GB, so it seems to use RAM to its advantage.

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Great Experience==but what about multi-tasking?
Jun 1, 2005 11:10AM PDT

I would love to have two identical machines to test all this stuff out. My machines are 5 years apart, so I have to rely on your good experience.

You are confirming that video encoding is cpu intensive, not Ram sensitive.

But what about multi-tasking while encoding in the background? I think that is where ram &/or multi-threading is supposed to have an impact.

1. If I am encoding a file in the background, or transfering a dvd to my harddrive, and then I multi-task, I notice that the background task slows down, but I have not noticed if this is just a slow down or if such slowdowns always cause a glitch on the background activity?--do you know? ((Such was the case when encoding mp3 on my old machine, so it was hands off while this was being done)) And if so, will Ram overcome this or not?

Nothing like the scientific approach of real world experience. Any additional actual experience you have will be apprecitated.

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That is multitasking.
Jun 1, 2005 11:42AM PDT

There's decoding, encoding, files being read, written and more.

It's a great test we did a little over a year ago and shed light on today's Windows 2000/XP machines and diminishing returns past 512MB.

If you want to do more tasks, you'll need more CPUs. Dual core is the answer to that, not more RAM at the moment.

Bob

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1gb seems practical
Jun 2, 2005 9:44AM PDT

MS recommends 256mb of ram for a XP system to do OK. But, it has been by experience that whatever MS OS was newly released, just double the recommened amount. You can stuff a XP all you want, but it seems 1gb of ram is the most practical amount to have anything above that, pgms. have to spell it out they want more. 512mb is darn good for just any typical user out there. You mentioned ram, I won't quibble about cpus, that's another matter. With ram pricing as it is, buy when low why pay more later. Sad

tada -----Willy