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desant
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Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig?
#14700964 - 07/01/11 09:41 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I already got low latency designer 6 gig corsair 3 channel ram kit
And in windows resource meter RAM usage never goes more than 3 - 3.5 gig
And ALL programs and games run really well.
But i would like to see all 6 RAM ports on the motherboard in use and 12 gig sounds really funky... i can get another 6 gig 3 pieces for about 80 quid, should i do it?
How much RAM you guys got?
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koraks
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14700977 - 07/01/11 09:47 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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2G on the box I'm working on right now. And no, 12G is at this point in time pretty much useless in a home computer.
Quote:
But i would like to see all 6 RAM ports on the motherboard in use and 12 gig sounds really funky
That would be the only valid reason to do it. You will also need to acquire one of Jimi Hendrix' guitars (and never play it), display an F1 car in your living room (and never drive it) and farm truffles in the back yard (but never harvest them).
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the bizzle
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: koraks]
#14701002 - 07/01/11 09:56 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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12 GB is useless
ive got 4GB and even that is bordering on unnecessary overkill
but especially based on price vs. payoff, 13 GB DR3 RAM is definitely not worth it
it'd be more worth it to get a better video card, faster cpu, or if u have only 1 hard drive get another one for 
Quote:
koraks said: 2G on the box I'm working on right now. And no, 12G is at this point in time pretty much useless in a home computer.
Quote:
But i would like to see all 6 RAM ports on the motherboard in use and 12 gig sounds really funky
That would be the only valid reason to do it. You will also need to acquire one of Jimi Hendrix' guitars (and never play it), display an F1 car in your living room (and never drive it) and farm truffles in the back yard (but never harvest them).
this
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Edited by the bizzle (07/01/11 09:56 AM)
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: the bizzle]
#14701025 - 07/01/11 10:07 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Hard drive for "slave"??? u mean raid 0?
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the bizzle
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14701056 - 07/01/11 10:17 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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yeah probly
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Prisoner#1
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? (moved) [Re: desant]
#14701139 - 07/01/11 10:37 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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This thread was moved from The Pub.
Reason: user requested
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? (moved) [Re: Prisoner#1]
#14701144 - 07/01/11 10:38 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Who voted 24 gig?
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Shroomism
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? (moved) [Re: desant]
#14701185 - 07/01/11 10:46 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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6GB is more than enough for any game you want to play. Unless you are doing shit like AUTOCAD you have no use at all for 12GB or more and will probably never use it.
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blujay
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14701194 - 07/01/11 10:48 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
desant said: I already got low latency designer 6 gig corsair 3 channel ram kit
And in windows resource meter RAM usage never goes more than 3 - 3.5 gig
And ALL programs and games run really well.
But i would like to see all 6 RAM ports on the motherboard in use and 12 gig sounds really funky... i can get another 6 gig 3 pieces for about 80 quid, should i do it?
How much RAM you guys got?
NOBODY HAD 3 GIGS ANYMOAR?
*tears for his failed ram stick*
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blujay
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: blujay]
#14701205 - 07/01/11 10:50 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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12 vs 6 is definitely not going to give you any performance gain, but you could fold mad proteins.
Unless you wanna do a 4-monitor setup and watch streaming video on one, do photoshop on another, read forums on a third, and play Crysis 2 on the fourth. Then you might need more than 6GB of ram. But then, you didn't say anything about the rest of the rig. I would go for a very expensive GFX card or a double-card setup.
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: koraks]
#14705028 - 07/02/11 01:10 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
koraks said: 2G on the box I'm working on right now. And no, 12G is at this point in time pretty much useless in a home computer.
Quote:
But i would like to see all 6 RAM ports on the motherboard in use and 12 gig sounds really funky
That would be the only valid reason to do it. You will also need to acquire one of Jimi Hendrix' guitars (and never play it), display an F1 car in your living room (and never drive it) and farm truffles in the back yard (but never harvest them).
but you could build a nice server for a small network with that type of memory, but then the core might not do that well on a computer with a single motherboard running as a server, you'd be better off with one of these:
http://www.quadopteron.com/motherboards.htm
I guess having more then 2 gigs of ram per core is kind of useless, because the core won't really process much more then that, a quad core I think only can really process like 2 gig of ram at a time per core. I mean 12 gigs ram you could essentially run like 6-12 vm's at once, but for business purposes, that core won't be able to handle dozens and dozens of users accessing the server at once.
I'm pretty sure of that
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5HTSynaptrip
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: imachavel]
#14705934 - 07/02/11 09:11 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I use Chem3D to do fancier shit than I would ever technically need it to, but it helps me a lot to visualize shit from class and more importantly lab. As said above, it can be decent for folding as well, but my desktop with 12 GiB of DDR3 1600 MHz was built to last for a long fucking time and I'm anal about leaving it on 24/7 (it gobbles electricity like a fat kid does cake too).
You can get pretty good deals on DDR3, and it isn't really that much anymore.
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: 5HTSynaptrip]
#14705997 - 07/02/11 09:47 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Yea.. i can get the same extra 6 gig for 80 rubbles 
I think i ll buy it
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5HTSynaptrip
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14706331 - 07/02/11 11:50 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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May have been said, but your motherboard hopefully has a robust BIOS that allows you to change a lot of settings. When you have all of those slots filled the RAM will probably not get enough voltage. I had to manually set my DDR3 frequency, DRAM BUS Voltage, CAS latency, and QPI voltage. When I didn't do that the stuff performed like shit. I'm also pretty sure XMP doesn't work when you have that many sticks.
Be prepared to spend a bit running tests and adjusting settings.
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Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. - My hero, who will be forever remembered, Carl Sagan.
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: 5HTSynaptrip]
#14706668 - 07/02/11 01:21 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Whats XMP?
As for mobo, i paid 300 quid for a professional asus motherboard, it should work fine
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: 5HTSynaptrip]
#14706906 - 07/02/11 02:24 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
5HTSynaptrip said: I use Chem3D to do fancier shit than I would ever technically need it to, but it helps me a lot to visualize shit from class and more importantly lab. As said above, it can be decent for folding as well, but my desktop with 12 GiB of DDR3 1600 MHz was built to last for a long fucking time and I'm anal about leaving it on 24/7 (it gobbles electricity like a fat kid does cake too).
You can get pretty good deals on DDR3, and it isn't really that much anymore.
going for a chem degree huh? I considered that at one point
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: 5HTSynaptrip]
#14706924 - 07/02/11 02:28 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
5HTSynaptrip said: May have been said, but your motherboard hopefully has a robust BIOS that allows you to change a lot of settings. When you have all of those slots filled the RAM will probably not get enough voltage. I had to manually set my DDR3 frequency, DRAM BUS Voltage, CAS latency, and QPI voltage. When I didn't do that the stuff performed like shit. I'm also pretty sure XMP doesn't work when you have that many sticks.
Be prepared to spend a bit running tests and adjusting settings.
that is a good point, by the way I just added an hd 4670 graphics card to my dell dimension 4700. I just have a dual core cpu, and only 3.5 gigs of ram, nothing too fancy, but is it possible I can supe up the graphics card settings a bit in the bios? can this thing run faster then it already does? I guess that would be overclocking though, and temperature does bother me, I assume it probably wears out my system faster then it would if it ran cooler. all that heat.
so basically, in a nut shell, you think the 12 gig ddr3 would be worth buying? even if it's for a home computer?
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14706935 - 07/02/11 02:30 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
desant said: I already got low latency designer 6 gig corsair 3 channel ram kit
And in windows resource meter RAM usage never goes more than 3 - 3.5 gig
And ALL programs and games run really well.
But i would like to see all 6 RAM ports on the motherboard in use and 12 gig sounds really funky... i can get another 6 gig 3 pieces for about 80 quid, should i do it?
How much RAM you guys got?
by the way, who has 24 gigs? you must be running a server out of your house to have that much, probably a mainboard with 4 cpu heatsinks etc.
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I did not say to edit my signature soulidarity! Now forever I will never remember what I said about understanding the secrets of the universe by paying attention to subtleties!
I'm never giving you the password again. Jerk
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: imachavel]
#14709543 - 07/03/11 02:29 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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somebody just clicked 24 gig, i donno some kid probably with 1 gig 10 year old Hewlet packard (HP)
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Diploid
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14710394 - 07/03/11 09:49 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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It depends on what OS you're using and what you typically do.
A 32-bit OS can't use more then 4gb even if more is available. But a 64-bit OS can.
If all you do is read email, web, and tweets, a lot of memory is a waste. But if you're into high definition video editing, you'll want all the memory you can get.
I have 24gb in mine for video editing. Even with an SSD for the OS the best way to edit huge video files is to keep them in RAM so the editing is fluid with no stuttering when data swaps to disk.
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Diploid]
#14710413 - 07/03/11 09:54 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
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5-HT2A
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14714103 - 07/04/11 02:58 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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12GB of ram is an absolute waste, you'd be better off smoking your ram.
That is unless you are doing extremely heavy duty image processing or other similar things. Otherwise your computer won't be any faster.
After 4GB it's all a waste. You'll seldom use more than 2-3GB in real life. I'm using ~1GB right now with a few programs open in XP. The newer Windows OSes are way more wasteful when it comes to system resources but even then 12GB is totally unnecessary.
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TrowaBarton
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: 5-HT2A]
#14714147 - 07/04/11 03:15 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Right not I have 5GB ram that wasnt an optin in the poll so I chose 6... but im looking to upgrade my PC to 8GB because right now I am not running in dual channel memory mode and want to even out my slots...
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Seuss
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: TrowaBarton]
#14718923 - 07/05/11 05:27 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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> A 32-bit OS can't use more then 4gb even if more is available. But a 64-bit OS can.
That isn't quite true. With x86 processors, they have PAE (physical address extension) that allows a 32-bit processor to address 64GB of memory. With a 32-bit x86 processor, there is a 4GB address limit per selector. (A selector can be thought of as a base register or pointer that the OS/CPU use to reference a chunk of memory.) Generally, due to complexity, this means that most 32-bit based OS that utilize PAE will restrict each process to 4GB of addressable memory even though the OS itself can utilize up to 64GB of addressable memory. (There are additional problems with large amounts of physical memory and the size of the page table...)
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Diploid
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14719646 - 07/05/11 09:31 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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That's true. But as you said, PAE is not the same having a genuine 64-bit CPU and OS. A 4gb process limit is very restrictive when editing video.
If not for the video editing, I would have stayed with 32-bit XP and a 4gb machine.
I'm not particularly impressed by Windows 7 and there are a few things missing that really annoy me, but I guess it's progress.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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koraks
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Diploid]
#14719654 - 07/05/11 09:35 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Btw, I like how even with as little as 28 votes, the results show a more or less perfect normal distribution centered around 4 gigs.
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14719908 - 07/05/11 10:54 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > A 32-bit OS can't use more then 4gb even if more is available. But a 64-bit OS can.
That isn't quite true. With x86 processors, they have PAE (physical address extension) that allows a 32-bit processor to address 64GB of memory. With a 32-bit x86 processor, there is a 4GB address limit per selector. (A selector can be thought of as a base register or pointer that the OS/CPU use to reference a chunk of memory.) Generally, due to complexity, this means that most 32-bit based OS that utilize PAE will restrict each process to 4GB of addressable memory even though the OS itself can utilize up to 64GB of addressable memory. (There are additional problems with large amounts of physical memory and the size of the page table...)
really interesting
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14720009 - 07/05/11 11:15 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > A 32-bit OS can't use more then 4gb even if more is available. But a 64-bit OS can.
That isn't quite true. With x86 processors, they have PAE (physical address extension) that allows a 32-bit processor to address 64GB of memory. With a 32-bit x86 processor, there is a 4GB address limit per selector. (A selector can be thought of as a base register or pointer that the OS/CPU use to reference a chunk of memory.) Generally, due to complexity, this means that most 32-bit based OS that utilize PAE will restrict each process to 4GB of addressable memory even though the OS itself can utilize up to 64GB of addressable memory. (There are additional problems with large amounts of physical memory and the size of the page table...)
Ohh thanks for explaining it Seuss
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14723685 - 07/06/11 12:46 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Since the thread seems to have broadened in scope (though I'll delete the question if anyone objects to me asking this here):
Can anyone comment on the possible allocations of memory between programs and system processes in 64 bit Windows, say Windows 7 64bit?
I recall when looking up the whole 4GiB 'limit' for 32 bit Windows, that it was mentioned Windows splits the available memory into equal halves and allocates up to half of it for programs and half for system processes (may not be the percise description of the two categories, but its something like that). So for a 4GiB system only 2 GiB could ever be used for the programs ran by the user.
Can anyone confirm this is true, say on Win 7 64 bit?
I'm not sure if I recall this correctly or if this only pertained to earlier OS's. As memor grows in size, it seems silly to take an entire half and allocate it to the system when the programs would seem to take much more memory when you get to 4GiB and beyond. My understanding was that this half-and-half split wasn't a minimum but a maximum per category.
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koraks
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: johnm214]
#14723767 - 07/06/11 01:08 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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No, I don't believe this is true, but I'm not certain. I do know that Windows tends to allocate large amounts of memory for system processes even if little or no applications are running. This creates the appearance that memory use is very high even if the system is idle. Perhaps this is what you're thinking of? Sorry for not providing a more specific answer, but you jogged my memory (no pun intended).
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Shroomism
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: johnm214]
#14724332 - 07/06/11 06:08 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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It's a little different for 7, well a lot actually - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978610
Quote:
When the physical RAM that is installed on a computer equals the address space that is supported by the chipset, the total system memory that is available to the operating system is always less than the physical RAM that is installed.
For example, consider a computer that has an Intel 975X chipset that supports 8 GB of address space. If you install 8 GB of RAM, the system memory that is available to the operating system will be reduced by the PCI configuration requirements. In this example, PCI configuration requirements reduce the memory that is available to the operating system by an amount that is between approximately 200 MB and approximately 1 GB. The reduction depends on the configuration.
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Seuss
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Shroomism]
#14724419 - 07/06/11 07:02 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Shroomism said: It's a little different for 7, well a lot actually - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978610
Quote:
When the physical RAM that is installed on a computer equals the address space that is supported by the chipset, the total system memory that is available to the operating system is always less than the physical RAM that is installed.
For example, consider a computer that has an Intel 975X chipset that supports 8 GB of address space. If you install 8 GB of RAM, the system memory that is available to the operating system will be reduced by the PCI configuration requirements. In this example, PCI configuration requirements reduce the memory that is available to the operating system by an amount that is between approximately 200 MB and approximately 1 GB. The reduction depends on the configuration.
Your answer isn't for the question he asked. Two different beasts...
On x86 based hardware, there are physical devices that map into the memory address space. An example is a video card that maps the video memory on the video card into the memory address space of the computer. In the old days, the address space of the computer was large compared to the amount of physical memory installed. This left plenty of holes in the addressable memory space for physical devices to map their memory into. With modern computers and cheap memory prices, it is common for the entire memory address space to be backed by physical memory. When this happen, and you install a device that wants to map into the physical memory address space, the physical memory at that location will no longer be available for use. This can be a big deal... if you have a logic board that addresses 4GB of memory, and you install 4GB of memory, then you install a graphics card with 2GB of memory, your computer can now only access 2GB of the 4GB installed (as 2GB is hidden by the graphics card).
John is asking a completely different question... does Windows 7 intelligently manage memory resources between OS and applications? I suspect they have improved vastly over the Windows XP days... but I don't really care, as I avoid using Microsoft crap.
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koraks
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14724458 - 07/06/11 07:15 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: if you have a logic board that addresses 4GB of memory, and you install 4GB of memory, then you install a graphics card with 2GB of memory, your computer can now only access 2GB of the 4GB installed (as 2GB is hidden by the graphics card).
Are you sure that the video memory uses the same memory space as the system RAM? I thought it wasn't possible to address the video RAM directly; only the couple of pages that are used for e.g. 80/20 text mode (what's it, 0xB0000–B7FFF or something), and the memory used for actual graphics and 3D duties is addressed by the GPU, and therefore resides in a separate address space that is not connected with the system memory? It's been a while since I worked with assembly and manual memory addressing tricks though.
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Diploid
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: koraks]
#14724710 - 07/06/11 08:58 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Are you sure that the video memory uses the same memory space as the system RAM?
This is true. Before I switched to Windows 7 64-bit, I had a 4gb Windows XP 32-bit system. The video card had 1gb on board. Windows mapped this into the total available memory space and so would only report a bit less than 3gb available.
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Seuss
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: koraks]
#14724782 - 07/06/11 09:15 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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> Are you sure that the video memory uses the same memory space as the system RAM?
With x86 hardware there are three different ways this can work. What I described above is called memory mapped IO (MMIO) (not to be confused with memory mapped file IO, known as mmap). There is also port mapped IO (PMIO), which uses a separate address space from physical memory to access things like video memory. Finally, there is direct memory access (DMA).
I was using the video card as a simple example, which was probably not the best. Basically, you can kiss 0xA0000 through 0xFFFFF goodbye, due to legacy issues from the DOS days. You can also kiss the very top of physical memory address space goodbye as this is where BIOS, PCI, APIC, DMI, etc tend to map.
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14725821 - 07/06/11 01:02 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said:
Quote:
Shroomism said: It's a little different for 7, well a lot actually - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978610
Quote:
When the physical RAM that is installed on a computer equals the address space that is supported by the chipset, the total system memory that is available to the operating system is always less than the physical RAM that is installed.
For example, consider a computer that has an Intel 975X chipset that supports 8 GB of address space. If you install 8 GB of RAM, the system memory that is available to the operating system will be reduced by the PCI configuration requirements. In this example, PCI configuration requirements reduce the memory that is available to the operating system by an amount that is between approximately 200 MB and approximately 1 GB. The reduction depends on the configuration.
Your answer isn't for the question he asked. Two different beasts...
On x86 based hardware, there are physical devices that map into the memory address space. An example is a video card that maps the video memory on the video card into the memory address space of the computer. In the old days, the address space of the computer was large compared to the amount of physical memory installed. This left plenty of holes in the addressable memory space for physical devices to map their memory into. With modern computers and cheap memory prices, it is common for the entire memory address space to be backed by physical memory. When this happen, and you install a device that wants to map into the physical memory address space, the physical memory at that location will no longer be available for use. This can be a big deal... if you have a logic board that addresses 4GB of memory, and you install 4GB of memory, then you install a graphics card with 2GB of memory, your computer can now only access 2GB of the 4GB installed (as 2GB is hidden by the graphics card).
John is asking a completely different question... does Windows 7 intelligently manage memory resources between OS and applications? I suspect they have improved vastly over the Windows XP days... but I don't really care, as I avoid using Microsoft crap.
windows improving a little bit is like saying a pile of crap dries out over a few days and smells a little less like crap then it did when it was steaming. windows has, and always will, have major paging erros and security errors. it is just a fact. with linux you can easily download porn and have like 20 applications open and your computer won't face fuck you. sure, it has it's limits, but it's like a billion times smoother then windows. mac osx I know nothing about, but have also heard it's a billion times easier then windows. of course I'd have no idea how to work with a pc that boots from the hard drive and has no real bios loading. did I say that correctly? but windows is like the american car, it just doesn't go an extra mile, or very far. funny enough though it sells billions above the competitors. I wouldn't throw apple stock over a ledge, but you have to admit nobody makes money like microsoft, not even intel.
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: koraks]
#14725877 - 07/06/11 01:13 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
koraks said:
Quote:
Seuss said: if you have a logic board that addresses 4GB of memory, and you install 4GB of memory, then you install a graphics card with 2GB of memory, your computer can now only access 2GB of the 4GB installed (as 2GB is hidden by the graphics card).
Are you sure that the video memory uses the same memory space as the system RAM? I thought it wasn't possible to address the video RAM directly; only the couple of pages that are used for e.g. 80/20 text mode (what's it, 0xB0000–B7FFF or something), and the memory used for actual graphics and 3D duties is addressed by the GPU, and therefore resides in a separate address space that is not connected with the system memory? It's been a while since I worked with assembly and manual memory addressing tricks though.
but that makes no sense, if you have a pc with a gig graphics card, a gig network card, and 256 mb of ram, and you try and play crysis online, your shit will crash every 5 seconds. sure, it will load, but that's about it, your frame rates will drop and you'll have nothing. now initially, if there is extra space, then yes, I believe the memory is addressed in different locations, to some extent. but this is given you have some room for processing. but initially I'm pretty sure the kernel works on everything at once, I mean mostly it's not obvious with a graphics card, because most applications pull a lousy few dozen bits of graphics memory at a time, so you won't see serious memory allocations used in one space when using just simple apps. video memory remember, works in cache just like ram, a hard core movie will work on the lousiest video cards. even if you have an hd connector and screen, because the video memory isn't being written to so to speak. with a movie it's all pre recorded and you are just playing it, you could have the oldest graphics card and that works. but with games it's different, a video game isn't pre recorded, but pre mapped. so your system never knows what memory is going to be loaded, you could look to the left, or to the right, drop a grenade, jump off a ledge, etc. which action takes the most memory is what effects your frame rate. the more memory loaded the lower your frame rate if your memory allocations can't adjust.
I know you know all this, but I just running it by you again. but I don't know much, you might be right. I mean it is allocated differently, but from what I know, ram works with any and every application. without ram loading one windows application would take literally weeks, because all actions would have to be written to the hard drive. I never heard any differently of graphics, I'm pretty sure the memory needs to be paged to random accessed memory. if I'm wrong correct me I don't want to sound like a moron.
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koraks
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: imachavel]
#14726067 - 07/06/11 01:44 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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imachavel, thanks for your response, but I was inquiring how video RAM is addressed in comparison with system RAM. For the stability or usability of an application (or an OS for that matter) it doesn't matter if it's addressed using the same mechanism, or split up and video tasks are delegated to the GPU which addresses its own RAM; it's an architectural choice. The way you put it, i.e. RAM = RAM no matter what, is too simplistic an explanation. Yes, hardware wise it's the same sort of semiconductors, but that doesn't say much about how it's used. It's a centralization/decentralization issue, and while in the 'old days' (i.e. XT time, early 1980s) there was indeed one all-purpose RAM that also held the graphics data, a process of decentralization has been taking place since ca. 1990 with more and more tasks being delegated to the video card, which can be regarded as a computer in itself, with a processing unit and dedicated memory. Then still, it's possible to address that memory together with the system RAM as one big chunk of memory (much like Apple used to address RAM and HDD within the same address range), but there's a bit more to that decision. So I appreciate the input, but I was looking for a bit more detail.
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imachavel
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: koraks]
#14727067 - 07/06/11 04:45 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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oh ok. so the video has it's own ram that doesn't need to be allocated to the ram chips installed on the mainboard until it's own memory runs out on the gpu/graphics card Interesting. well you learn something new every day, sorry I told you otherwise. I was misinformed, that was my mistake. thanks for the update though
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Edited by imachavel (07/06/11 04:52 PM)
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Seuss
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: imachavel]
#14729945 - 07/07/11 06:11 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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> oh ok. so the video has it's own ram that doesn't need to be allocated to the ram chips installed on the mainboard until it's own memory runs out on the gpu/graphics card Interesting.
Yes and no. On cheap computers you will often see embedded video chips (on the logic board) that use system memory for their video memory. There is usually an option in BIOS to configure how much of the system memory is stolen for video memory. However, good video cards have their own video memory. Don't confuse the purpose of video memory and system memory. Video memory is used to hold texture maps, to hold shading models, and to hold a 'backing store' of what is being displayed (and possible backing stores for frames to be displayed that are under construction). When video memory runs out, the video card cannot simply use system memory. Instead, unused texture maps, shading models, etc, have to be overwritten with the new stuff to be used. This is one reason why video cards with more video memory perform better... they can hold an entire game (or level) worth of texture maps and don't have to spend time swapping things in and out of video memory.
> much like Apple used to address RAM and HDD within the same address range)
Really? I never knew that. Guess it would work much like mmap() system calls, but with the entire drive mapped. Interesting.
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14729949 - 07/07/11 06:14 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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yea i have a 6870 ATI 200 dolar 1 gig card
now they have cards with 2 gigs
my mobo got 4 PCEe 16 slots, for up to 4 video cards
back in 2005 when SLI just came out i tried running 2 ge force cards but it didnt work well, lots of bugs and glitches
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Seuss
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14729978 - 07/07/11 06:33 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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> my mobo got 4 PCEe 16 slots, for up to 4 video cards
Be careful to read the fine print. I've not looked at the newer chipsets, but back when I was more into PC hardware, there were a limited number of "lanes" available within the chipset. Even if the board had four slots, only one slot would have full bandwidth while the other slots would be restricted to half or quarter bandwidth... (you would see something like x16, x8, x4, x4 for each of the four slots giving a total of x32 which was the maximum number of lanes that the chipset supported)
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desant
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: Seuss]
#14730156 - 07/07/11 08:21 AM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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indeed. that is what i think is the case, but the mobo was designed not to run 4 cards at once but only 2.
This is a 300 pound gaming motherboard and they designed it that you can switch on the fly between ATI card number 1 and 2 (which are in SLI / cross fire) to NVidia number 3 and 4. That is presuming you got 4 cards installed on mobo. There are also 4 switches on the board which can disable individual card
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? [Re: desant]
#14731435 - 07/07/11 02:17 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Did you get a Classified or Rampage (or something close)? As Seuss said you'll only get 16x speed from so many slots, my board only does 2x 16. Honestly, I don't see any benefit to having more than two cards unless you have eyefinity or something. Crossfire application profiles do help the performance a fair amount, but some games just don't work that well. WoW for some reason works better with one card than with crossfire... I also get better performance running it in DirectX 11 mode.
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snoot
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? (moved) [Re: Shroomism]
#14736653 - 07/08/11 02:41 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Shroomism said: 6GB is more than enough for any game you want to play. Unless you are doing shit like AUTOCAD you have no use at all for 12GB or more and will probably never use it.
yeah only reason I went with 8gb, was for 3d modeling, photoshoppin, illustrated all together.
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iateshaggy
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Re: Is it worth upgrading DDR3 RAM to 12 Gig? (moved) [Re: snoot]
#14737326 - 07/08/11 05:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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lol, i built a 12 gig ram i7 pc 2 years ago and the only thing i did since was web browse.
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