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General discussion

Novice questions about memory (RAM)

by nino88 Jun 2, 2005 6:00PM PDT

My P4 and P M notebooks both have 512 RAM only. My new AMD 4000+ has 1gb RAM. If I only use simple applications (non gaming), does bigger RAM make any difference? If so, which area? I honestly don't see any big difference except during the shut down time. My AMD notebook can shut down within a few seconds only although loaded with a lot of softwares.

Also, does the dedicated memory video card has anything to do with the download speed? Or it's for gaming purpose only. I upgraded the last notebook I bought with the most expensive option on this part but do I actually need it.

The reason I ask this is for my future purchase so I don't need to spend more on things that I don't need.

Thanks in advance.

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I only noticed it...

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 2, 2005 9:12PM PDT

It helped CastleWolfenstein reduce the time between levels. Same for Doom 3, and in one place in a Final Fantasy set. Other than that, even mighty Photoshop doesn't pay off (from 512M to 1G).

Unlike the 256M to 512M today you don't get a lot of payback.

For a DVD rendering, I have a story about 2 duplicate machines and 6 hour runs being reduced by 5 minutes by moving the RAM up from 512M to 1G.

But the bragging rights seem to always pay off.

Bob

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