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General discussion

will it make a noticeable difference

Jul 19, 2005 7:04AM PDT

i currently have 1gb of ddr2 ram (533mhz) iam considering upgrading to 2gb. will this make a noticeable difference in performance? (my system is a dell dimension 8400 3.2 gig p4 h/t 160 gb hard drive ati radeon x300se 128mb pci express graphics card

Discussion is locked

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Nope. . .
Jul 19, 2005 7:12AM PDT

Above one Gig is overkill. Unless you are into heavy video editing or CAD programs. Then it still may be too much.

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I agree
Jul 19, 2005 7:46AM PDT

That 2 gigs is way too much memory unless you are doing heavy video editing...and even then 1 gig can still get the job done.

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Nope.
Jul 19, 2005 8:02AM PDT

I have a test I ran last year with DVD creation software. It was video editing intensive and since the images in and out were some 4 to 8+ GB you would think that more memory would pay off. I won't go over all the details except the machines were identical and we moved the ram from one machine to the other and repeated the tests.

The 1GB RAM finished before the 512M machine over the 6 hour run by 5 minutes.

I expect a 1GB to 2GB comparison to not pay off by many minutes.

Bob

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only if you play bf2
Jul 19, 2005 8:28AM PDT

battlefield 2 is currently the biggest memory hog game ever made. if you play this game, get 2gb, if not, it is a waste.

konny

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(NT) (NT) u dont need 2gb
Jul 19, 2005 10:28AM PDT
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for this game...yes but
Jul 19, 2005 10:32AM PDT

only if you play on high settings, even people with 7800gtxs that have 1gig complain of 40fps until they upgrade to 2gigs.

konny

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(NT) (NT) human eye refreshes at like 40fps so cant tell difference
Jul 19, 2005 11:42AM PDT
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(NT) (NT)wow, did you know that all movies are 25fps?!
Jul 19, 2005 12:41PM PDT
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)wow, did you know that all movies are 25fps?!
Jul 20, 2005 4:22AM PDT

It's 24fps, but movie projectors flash the same frame 3 times so it looks like 72fps to your eye. John

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(NT) (NT)wow 24fps compared to 25fps, i dont care!
Jul 20, 2005 4:26AM PDT
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Rather than upgrading the RAM my suggestion
Jul 19, 2005 12:30PM PDT

is to upgrade the video card that came with your PC.
Check out how it rates in:

Unreal Tournement 2004
Half-Life 2
Doom3
Ridick
Pacific Fighter
Sims 2

http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7591-0.html?forumID=26&threadID=114817&messageID=1305419

I have not read any test that shows 2GB will make gaming noticeably improved over 1GB, and especially with a low end video card. I don't have Battlefield 2, but understand the minimum is 512MB of RAM with recommended as 1GB.

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Sorry, wrong link given.....
Jul 19, 2005 2:49PM PDT
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I agree with John Robie....
Jul 19, 2005 6:46PM PDT

The RAM is fine, but get yourself a decent video card. That X300 is very low end.

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agree get video
Jul 19, 2005 11:07PM PDT