What is Digg?64 Comments
- misterpony, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Tom's Hardware has a lot of good articles but they are idiots to put all their articles spread out over 12 pages with one paragraph/page.
- greenknight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4They're not idiots to spread that article over 12 pages. They have more room for ads that way,
- mancat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My desktop has 1GB for the purpose of (older) games. However, my laptop running XP is well-tuned, very few system services enabled, and runs beautifully with 512MB, even with many applications open. The amount of memory you need also depends on how you have configured your operating system.
- CoolWind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is a lame article.
If you usually need 1gb of ram because you multi-task, but then you decide to play Doom3 while all your usual applications are running, it is common sense that an extra gig of ram is needed. It doesn't take a 12 page article to explain it, and it's not news. - Koloss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Fact of the matter is: you can never have enough ram...
But most people won't need more than 1GB and they cost about $80, honestly, I don't see how they could write a twelve page article on this topic. - sirber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11GB is the minimum now, 1.5GB is recommended if you play the latest 3D games.
- Dabellah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I consider 2GB to be today's standard for games and whatnot... Especially with the Dual Core processors out there now. Big performance increase if you have at least that much compared to 1GB :P
- fartonmyear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i don't think anyone of us can play at 800x600. this article should have at least made the tests 1024x768.
- h00ligan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1safe to say one gig per processor or core... rediculously long article to cover that.
- sTiVo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2From page 12:
"Indeed, 1 GB of system memory will most likely be enough for the average user and for people."
Wow! People too? - skippy2057, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The rule of thumb is that you always need a bit more than you already have....
- hammerattack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11 GB of dual channel DDR ram is more than enough; any more is a luxury. I play games, do image editing, and even some video editing. When I had 2 GB in here, it only shaved a second out of every minute it took to process a job.
There are more important factors than RAM gluttony when it comes to performance. - ahmerhussain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm fine with 64 and running Linux
- BugMeNot2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow! A dupe AND an old story?
- xtardox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1tom had a decent look at this topic a while back
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/13/how_much_ram_do_you_really_need/ - barium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Wow. OK, so more RAM is better?
"Tom's Hardware has a lot of good articles but they are idiots to put all their articles spread out over 12 pages with one paragraph/page."
I agree.
I skimmed the article but didn't find anything regarding Windows and it's notoriously weird swap file usage - that would've been interesting. - hoowahman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0God when did 1 GB become average? I need to upgrade my 1.7 ghz, 512 meg 2002 POS. ;)
- VinCenT13, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1REPOST. Search before you post. Same exact article got over 1k diggs.
http://www.digg.com/hardware/How_Much_RAM_Do_You_Really_Need_ - mdmoya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@Paul in NYC, and the rest of you talking about Windows memory limitations:
I thought XP was limited to 4GB, but decided to check out Microsoft's website to be sure.
"Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature.
The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. When the physical RAM in the system exceeds 16 GB and the /3GB switch is used, the operating system will ignore the additional RAM until the /3GB switch is removed. This is because of the increased size of the kernel required to support more Page Table Entries. The assumption is made that the administrator would rather not lose the /3GB functionality silently and automatically; therefore, this requires the administrator to explicitly change this setting."
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx for the limitations of the other versions of Windows.
I found this comment particularly insteresting:
"Operating systems based on Microsoft® Windows NT® technologies have always provided applications with a flat 32-bit virtual address space that describes 4 gigabytes (GB) of virtual memory. The address space is usually split so that 2 GB of address space is directly accessible to the application and the other 2 GB is only accessible to the Windows executive software." - ephekt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have 2GB in this PC and have yet to see the need for more, even in the newest games.
- sexualpotatoes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0OLd
- tsupersonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"OLd"
Then why didnt you post it? - xtardox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0well i guess it depends on how much of "compensation" i need for other things ???
now excuse me while i put a wing on the back of my Honda civic. - veracon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have 512 MB; I can perfectly fine run Photoshop (7 through COO on Ubuntu, CS2 on Windows), 3d studio max (Windows), ConTEXT (or Anjuta on Ubuntu), Gaim, PuTTY and Firefox with some ten tabs at once. It doesn't even run slow
- Paul_in_NC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't remember where I read this, but doesn't XP have problems with being able to use any RAM that is over 2.5GB? Like I said, I don't remember where I read this and if anyone can correct me or agree with me on this I welcome it. Paul.
- number8888, on 10/12/2007, -0/+01 gig is plenty enough for pretty much everything, even for intense gaming. But if you can get 2 gig now might as well since you will probably need it when Vista hits. Of course WHAT kind of ram you get is also important. Value ram will not perform as well as the higher grade ones (but 2 gigs of slower ram is probably still better).
- yournamehere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+01 gig of ram isn't enough if you are developing something that has alot of graphics. 2 gigs is a safer bet all the way around.
- swaxhog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0For Windows XP, get 1-2gb and turn off your swap. If you have the money get, 4gb. You only live once =p
- dynamx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0all these comments and no one mentioned bill gates' famous line about ram?
- tsupersonic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I remember when 1GB was the "standard," for all purpose. Now, it's 2GB, and it will increase as computer hardware and software evolves.
- Wings, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Someone once said "640k should be enough for anybody"
- VSack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"For Windows XP, get 1-2gb and turn off your swap. If you have the money get, 4gb. You only live once =p"
I believe XP is hardcoded not to recognize anything more than 3gb. Also, the web edition of 2003 only recognizes I think 2 or 3 as well. - A-Dog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0what is better: 512MB of Performance RAM or 1GB of Value RAM?
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"i just built a rig with 4gb of ram, so this is a little late.
400$ of ram, 50$ mobo." - steve_s
you sir, are a moron. at current rates, by the time you have loaded 4GB of memory, 2GB of it would have already been deallocated making it pointless. - Paul_in_NC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'll take 1GB of value RAM any day. IMHO mainly overclockers want/need/require/desire the Performance RAM.
- Gneisbaard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0on my windows desktop machine, i have a shortage with my 512 megs, howeever, my laptop seems to do fine with 256 megs.. why? it runs linux.
Linux seems to get more performance out of my RAM (i guess windows programmers don't care about older systems) and more out of my battery (i can clock the processor lower without the GUI getting unresponsive all the time). - jalagl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+02GB on my work Windows XP Laptop (1.6 Centrino). That is what you need to run Eclipse and a J2EE nicely.
1GB on my Powerbook, soon to be 2GB - Mac OS X likes LOTS of RAM... - Jhorra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I do development at work with 2GB of ram. I still occasionally get "system low on resources" errors.
- Osiriscky3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this is market hype
- HiddenS3crets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This was on digg a few months back. old, no digg
- JohnTheLutheran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My PC has 512 MB RAM, and whenever I drop back into my Windows XP partition I'm always staggered by how quickly it grinds to a near-halt, swapping like crazy. Multitasking is very, very difficult.
OTOH, using Linux (Debian with an XFCE desktop) I never have any memory problems at all, even though I use my Linux installation for pretty much everything and am a complete multitasking addict, typically running Firefox (with 10+ tabs), Thunderbird, The GIMP, OpenOffice.org 2.0, Amarok and even Citrix on a Java VM (for accessing work documents), flicking between them without the PC so much as breaking sweat - it's a bit of a red-letter day when it has to use the swap partition. - gotamd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't see how this article concluded that there was really much, if any, case for using 2GB of RAM. They found that 1GB is sufficient in almost every single case (including gaming though they decided that 2GB was better anyway...why?). Those few times where 2GB really did make a difference were in scenarios that very few people would ever actually come upon. Of course a "hardcore" gamer is going to try using P2P or decrypting/uncompressing huge files while playing a game. That makes perfect sense! No, not really. Not at all. If you're a hardcore gamer, you're going to close down any RAM or processor hungry programs before firing up your game.
A better conclusion would be:
512MB if you don't multitask much and run a very lean system.
1GB if you do a lot of gaming or multitasking
2GB if you're too lazy to keep your system clean and don't even know what programs you're running because you never close anything
I also think the title is misleading since it says that 2GB isn't just hype but in the conclusion and testing doesn't really find any need for it. - polymangler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0the 3d rendering results were interesting....I'll have to remember that next time we order some render nodes
- benf2004, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This exact same article was on the front page about a month ago now.
No digg. - Dwebtron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0old...
- bart9h, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0On my last machine I had 256MB, with swap turned completely off.
It worked for years, and I had to turn the swap on only when I tried to play GTA3 under wine.
Of course that was possible because I don't do KDE nor GNOME (I use fluxbox + ROX-Filer, but there are many other lightweight desktop options out there.)
In my new machine I have 1GB, and it's only really used when I play Quake IV (reloading a savegame is fast). - jmoney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Same here.
- whitty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My current gaming rig is running on 512, and yeah it's a bit slow to load, but after that the only bottleneck is the graphics card (i'm still running an FX5700). Sure more ram is always better, but i've built machines on XP that do small tasks like word and web just fine on 64 mb of ram.
- shuffle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Thats easy. How much ram you NEED = the absolute most money you can afford to spend on RAM. End of story!
- phlll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0640k ought to be enough for anybody.
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