Why Do You Need More Than 6GB of Memory?

I definately have the need to run my 12GB ram in more Core i7 build. I'm a DBA and I've been running 4 vm's for a test environment. I'm running a two node RAC pair with a data guard configuration to another two node RAC pair for DR testing. At some point I'd like to go to 24 GB of ram. If I didn't have my VM's then I'd probably just run 6GB in my desktop.

When I'm gaming I don't nearly use more than 4GB or 5GB of ram in Windows 7. My Dell m1730 has only 4GB (for now) and it runs Windows 7 just fine.
 
Mephisto_kur said:
I was initially annoyed at this topic. Later I realized that I was annoyed not with the topic, but with the word "need."

At this point in time almost none of you need (or may ever need) 12GB of RAM.

WANT on the other hand... 12GB could be nice in some situations of heavy multitasking.
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I find your statements to be rather naive. You're stating basically the exact same thing many people did when computing moved from 128 to 256 or 256 to 512 or 512 to 1024 or 1024 to 2048 or 2048 to 4096. Do you see the trend here?

I've made every one of those jumps and a lot more and I've noticed a difference every time even with just "light" computer usage. I have three Q6600 systems sitting here, one with 4gig of RAM and two others with 2 gig of RAM all configured similarly and running between 3.4Ghz and 3.6Ghz. I can tell a difference between the systems and I ca pinpoint the difference to RAM.

As I showed earlier with the screenshot of Task Manager, I would be paging like crazy on my other two systems with a similar light load as my main system. As it is, I page more than enough to be noticeable on my main system with 4 gig. As I multitask more and more my system becomes less responsive since the current amount of RAM cannot keep up with my needs. This happens with the majority of computer users out there. If it wasn't true most people could still be happily running with 128 meg of RAM. However, I dare you to try running WinXP with 128 meg of RAM or even 256. It's not an enjoyable experience.
 
I have 8 gb of ram and do a lot of work in a variety of CS4 apps. My main workload involves manipulating large photos at resolutions in excess of 20 MP. At these resolutions, working on one photo at a time is usually the exception and not the norm, thus the more ram I can get the better.

For me having lots of RAM is all about opportunity cost. Sure I may not always max it out (and often I don't) but when I do max it out it is for a good reason (work related) and thus worth the relatively small investment.

The difference between 12 GB and 6 GB is a couple of hundred bucks (at most), and when compared to the cost of a high-end gaming GPU (used primarily for entertainment), it is a no brainer to invest in the extra capacity.

Plus 12 gb is [H]!!
 
bigtex11 said:
1. Does setting up a RAM disk make sense for the large RAM setup?
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I'm on good old XP with 4Gb of RAM and use 1Gb as a Ram disk. It stores temp files and cache for my browser, and the page file. I definitely notice a difference. Better browser performance and way faster when I install something (which require extracting files in the temp dir)

No experiennce with Windows 7 but I'll have a new build with min 12Gb next year and try a Ramdisk of 2-3 Gb
 
I know this may sound a bit bollocks but I've managed to hit 11 GB use on my Windows 7 installation.

Using 2 instances of VMware Workstation with virtual ESX hosts and more VMware guests underneath those again eat it up :)
 
This brings up the question for i7 users. Is there 4GB DDR3 modules? Or is everyone using 2GB modules to fill all slots?
 
3DChipset said:
This brings up the question for i7 users. Is there 4GB DDR3 modules? Or is everyone using 2GB modules to fill all slots?
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I talked to Corsair about this earlier this week and it was explained to me that the ICs were simply to costly at this point in time. Surely that will change though.
 
3DChipset said:
This brings up the question for i7 users. Is there 4GB DDR3 modules? Or is everyone using 2GB modules to fill all slots?
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If you're really hungry for ram, you could always get an intel 5400 based system and load up those 4gb and 8gb dimms.
 
Just get 8-16GB of ram and your set for along time. One less thing to worry about later on.
 
I noticed that you had 8 cpu's in your task man snapshot, have you (or anyone else for that matter) played around with disabling the hyperthreading at all with your system to see if it affected performance?
 
Dr_b_ said:
I noticed that you had 8 cpu's in your task man snapshot, have you (or anyone else for that matter) played around with disabling the hyperthreading at all with your system to see if it affected performance?
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Performance in what exactly?
 
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running 4gb on Vista Ultimate x64 w/Firefox open with approx. 10 tabs. iTunes and Tweetdeck.

I'm seriously contemplating putting another 4gb of memory in this machine along with building a new i7 machine to replace this one.
 
how about VMs? I have a 8 core machine with 8 gigs of ram running 5 windows vm's, glassfish, cruise control etc. Haven't maxed it out yet but I think I'd be hurting with less memory.
 
How's your IO with all those VM's?

I was wondering if you could have enough mem to run the whole VM in the host's memory. My ubuntu server expandable drive is under 2gb so it should be doable. All my VM's are on a seperate drive, but if I run multiple of them at once they are sharing a drive.
 
Mephisto_kur said:
I was initially annoyed at this topic. Later I realized that I was annoyed not with the topic, but with the word "need."

At this point in time almost none of you need (or may ever need) 12GB of RAM.

WANT on the other hand... 12GB could be nice in some situations of heavy multitasking.
Click to expand...

SmokeRngs said:
I find your statements to be rather naive. You're stating basically the exact same thing many people did when computing moved from 128 to 256 or 256 to 512 or 512 to 1024 or 1024 to 2048 or 2048 to 4096. Do you see the trend here?
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I agree. I see this too much and it annoys me. Some of these people need to think outside the box EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT NEEDS for their computing purposes. Will an Average Joe desktop/net surfing user at this (exact current date in time) absolutely need 12 gigs of ram? No. But I signed up for HardOCP. Not grandmas knitting shop. Some guys here have their heads in little bubbles thinking the world is just internet and games. When you guys wise up and get into some more strenuous computing needs you will see just how easily 12 gigs of ram can be filled as shown many times in this thread. And even for an average high performance desktop user as said somewhere else here, if you can add enough RAM to your mobo, you can essentially set a cache mirror of your entire operating system so everything is completely instantaneous.
 
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@Kyle or anyone else using the Win7 RC, particularly in combination w/an SSD...

Is SuperFetch actually disabled by default when you install Win7 on an SSD? This recent MS Q&A seems to indicate that is the case (see quote below), even though it doesn't make any sense to me... Loading apps from RAM should still be substantially faster than loading them from the SSD shouldn't it? 'Specially if you're attempting to open several of them simultaneously... So what gives? Seems counter-intuitive to me, but maybe I'm missing something obvious... Maybe the difference in speed between the two mediums (RAM and SSD) when loading a program is so small (as perceived by the user) that the relative difference between them is irrelevant?

Even if that's the case, unused RAM is still wasted RAM, unless they intend for people to simply do as Kyle is doing and not even bother closing most of their often-used apps; in which case Superfetch is probably irrelevant. :p


" Be default, Windows 7 will disable Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching on SSDs with good random read, random write and flush performance. These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck. See the FAQ section for more details. "
 
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And I was already amazed a couple of months ago when they announced 16gb modules.
 
I honestly bought 6gb because 3gb doesn't seem like enough anymore and was less than what my C2D machine had (4gb). I couldn't go backwards per se.

I am also a heavy gamer and do leave other applications running while playing. Some games are getting way up there in the memory usage. I wanted to make sure things would be as smooth as possible.

For triple channel, it seems like the best option and the price is so low anymore. I don't fear ram ever being a problem, with 3gb I would.
 
I find your statements to be rather naive.
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+1
It's not just "extreme/heavy multi-tasking" situations. Yes, people who "need" more than 6 GB are the minority but not so incredibly rare to brush off entirely.

*(nobody NEEDS this stuff, let's be honest, it's not an essential of life, but I think everyone agrees on that point)

Video editing, sure, but software development is a pretty hard hitter on RAM as well, and I have a feeling there's a few devs on [H]. My work PC never sees multimedia (Photoshop/video) usage and yet couldn't breathe easy with any less than 8 GB.
 
I have 8GB of ram in my machine. I use all of it in Photoshop, were I handle many hundreds of high res RAW images. Plus my VMs for testing. It all uses a lot of ram. The average user is not going to need that much ram for a while. It all depends on your PC usage.
 
Per my sig rig, I run 4x1GB of D9GKX, but if I changed ram in this mobo/PC I'd get 4x2GB OCZ Blades(can't say much other ram would be a good upgrade/change :D :p). Otherwise, I won't simply change ram until a full upgrade, then I'll use 4, 6, or 8GB of ram, w/e the mobo takes and how much money I have to burn ;).

4GB is more than plenty for me right now since the most I do for ram is keep multiple programs open (while gaming or not). I'm a gamer, so I just won't ever go under 4GB, because some games/programs can use up to 1 or 2 GB by themselves, so that leaves RAM aplenty/to spare. With more than enough RAM, this keeps the RAM from ever being a "bottleneck".

I agree with the below quote:

Gamers sure don't need more than 8.
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Good thing RAM is cheap, haha.

That's some crazy RAM usage, but of course, only a few people will ever need such vast amounts of RAM.
Cool stuff.
 
zxcjason said:
I'm on good old XP with 4Gb of RAM and use 1Gb as a Ram disk. It stores temp files and cache for my browser, and the page file. I definitely notice a difference. Better browser performance and way faster when I install something (which require extracting files in the temp dir)

No experiennce with Windows 7 but I'll have a new build with min 12Gb next year and try a Ramdisk of 2-3 Gb
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actually RAMdisk is the only reason for me that makes 12GB of RAM sounds sexy.
 
I really do not know why this is even up for debate. The more memory the better: ALWAYS. Use the extra for RAM disks (scratch and cache).

It's very rarely a NEED, but those who turn that into a "never need" are idiots.
 
roadtonowhere08 said:
I really do not know why this is even up for debate. The more memory the better: ALWAYS. Use the extra for RAM disks (scratch and cache).

It's very rarely a NEED, but those who turn that into a "never need" are idiots.
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While I understand your point, it isn't always true. More memory is not better if that memory goes unused and is slower. More modules, or higher density modules may not allow for running with timings that are as tight, and may not allow for the same clock speeds as smaller and fewer modules do. Some systems also do not overclock as well as those running fewer modules.
 
Dan_D said:
While I understand your point, it isn't always true. More memory is not better if that memory goes unused and is slower. More modules, or higher density modules may not allow for running with timings that are as tight, and may not allow for the same clock speeds as smaller and fewer modules do. Some systems also do not overclock as well as those running fewer modules.
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True, but I would assert that the gains from a 4gb RAM drive are far greater than tighter timings or slightly faster RAM or even overclocks for the majority of people. Now encoding is benefited by CPU speed, but the things that are accelerated by a few gigs of memory acting as a drive are endless. Gamers are excluded from this right now, but imagine if one could install the entire game on a RAM drive using commercial RAM drive software (and back it up/restore to an HD upon shutdown/boot)?
 
I will challenge anyone to PROVE to me they can discern between CAS8 and CAS7 RAM at the same speeds of any desktop application without a timer of some sort. Now for benchmark monkeys measuring their ePenis, this is something totally different.
 
I thought people bought lower CAS RAM because it would overclock higher without outrageous (CAS10+) timings..
 
Kyle, can you post your system specs?
I'm having trouble overclocking with 6 sticks
 
Hi, I would rather get 2 x 4 GB (DDR2) over 2 x 2 GB for my next system, but the prices for 2 x 4 GB has gone up considerably.
It cost now approx. six times more of what the 2 x 2 GB memory modules cost.

There's a shortage of high density (DDR2) RAM I guess.
 
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So get 4x4GB instead... It might be harder to OC but it beats paying 2-3x as much for the same amount of RAM. Generally I don't even bother paying extra for higher speed RAM (let alone lower CAS latencies), I just get whatever's got the lowest latencies within stock speeds while still being priced reasonably. That stuff generally OCs rather well if you're opting for enthusiast RAM from Corsiar, G.Skill, OCZ, etc and it barely costs any more than value/budget RAM does (maybe 10-15%? compared to the cheap no-name or no-heatspreder OEM type stuff).
 
Impulse said:
So get 4x4GB instead...
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Ah, you mean 4 x 2 GB, right ?
Well, see ... my next system is gonna be Mini iTX and the motherboard has only 2 banks for DDR2 RAMs.
That's why I am forced to make a desicion beforehand. If I go for 2 x 2 GB, I'm stuck.
But I cannot justify paying 300 Euro for 2 x 4 GB over 50 Euro for 2 x 2 GB.
 
EnderW said:
Kyle, can you post your system specs?
I'm having trouble overclocking with 6 sticks
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Overclocking what exactly?

Technically, my RAM is underclocked. Corsair 1600 rated DDR3 running at 1442.
 
Dan_D said:
I whole heartedly agree. I've had the ultra low latency RAM and the higher latency RAM and I can't tell a difference. When I shop for RAM I look for higher clock speed RAM, not lower latency RAM.
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Plus, at least in my experience, the lower the latency the ram, the less stability you get with overclocking it.
 
Cov said:
Ah, you mean 4 x 2 GB, right ?
Well, see ... my next system is gonna be Mini iTX and the motherboard has only 2 banks for DDR2 RAMs.
That's why I am forced to make a desicion beforehand. If I go for 2 x 2 GB, I'm stuck.
But I cannot justify paying 300 Euro for 2 x 4 GB over 50 Euro for 2 x 2 GB.
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Yeah sorry, I meant 4x2GB. Didn't realize you were limited by the mobo though, looks like you're pretty much out of options if that's the case. 2x2GB is so cheap right now though, 'least on this side of the pond, $40-50... Not a bad hit to take if you think you can survive w/4GB now, although I don't think 4GB DDR2 sticks are gonna get any more affordable in the future since production's gonna start moving more towards DDR3.
 
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