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    Question about the ram

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by Frenzy, Mar 8, 2011.

  1. Frenzy

    Frenzy Notebook Enthusiast

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    Sorry for this noob question, but how much ram does one really need on an alienware? I always thought more the ram the better for games, but a lot of people I see here all have high end specs on processors, video cards etc but with only 4gb of ram. Is that all you actually really need for games? Then what would you need the 8gb for?
     
    Frenzy, Mar 8, 2011
    #1
  2. ajslay

    ajslay Overclocker, PC Builder

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    4gb ram is more then enough for games
     
    ajslay, Mar 8, 2011
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  3. kent1146

    kent1146 Notebook Prophet

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    4GB is more than enough for 97% of people out there, including gamers. The remaining 3% of people who actually *USE* 8GB of RAM are people running RAM-consuming applications like databases, virtual machines, and photo/video editing software applications.

    People buy 8GB of RAM for one of two reasons:
    (1) They are within that 3% of users, and actually benefit from having that much memory; or
    (2) They think "RAM is cheap, so why not?"

    If you have 4GB of RAM, save your money and stick with what you have. If you are itching to spend money on an upgrade, you'll get a much higher performance return for your money if you were to buy an SSD instead (see my signature for several videos on SSD performance).
     
    kent1146, Mar 8, 2011
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  4. ajslay

    ajslay Overclocker, PC Builder

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    thats very true, on my m11x i only have 2gb ram and iv never had any performance issues, the only reason for me to upgrade to 3 or 4gb or ram is if i need to run a heavy virtual machine or something, which i rarely do and dont need more then i have, an ssd you would be much happier with
     
    ajslay, Mar 8, 2011
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  5. Skillman01

    Skillman01 Notebook Consultant

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    If you want 8 gigs go buy it. But 8 gigs or more is especially used for rendering and video editing....4 gigs is ok for now....Still most of the games required at least 2 gigs...
     
    Skillman01, Mar 8, 2011
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  6. djjosherie

    djjosherie Notebook Consultant

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    You should NEVER need more than 4 gigs for gaming, remember gaming (and even software in general) programmers are writing programs to work perfectly on 32 bit operating systems, which can only handle 4 gigs of ram.
     
    djjosherie, Mar 8, 2011
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  7. ajslay

    ajslay Overclocker, PC Builder

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    8gb is a waste, unless you reeaallly need it, you wont see any performance improvements, therefor its irrelevant
     
    ajslay, Mar 8, 2011
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  8. Frenzy

    Frenzy Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks a lot for the info guys. While we are on the topic of ssd, is it possible to get raid 0 ssd SATA 3 on the sandy bridge processors? Does it require more steps than one would just to swap out a hdd and insert a sdd?
     
    Frenzy, Mar 8, 2011
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  9. kent1146

    kent1146 Notebook Prophet

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    (1) Yes, it is possible to run 2x SSD's in RAID-0 connected via SATA-3 (6Gbps) channels on a computer running a Sandy Bridge CPU.

    (2) However, the Alienware M11x only supports one SATA drive (not two, as required by RAID), does not support SATA-3, and does not support Sandy Bridge CPUs.

    (3) Also be aware that running 2x SSDs in RAID-0 doesn't actually give you any real-world performance benefits. A single SSD can saturate the onboard disk controller from an Intel chipset. Connecting two SSDs in RAID-0 won't give you any benefits because of that. In order for you to get any benefit from RAID-0 SSDs, you will need to spend a lot of money (several $100s) on a 3rd party desktop RAID card with a disk controller that is powerful enough to handle the traffic from two SSDs in RAID-0
     
    kent1146, Mar 8, 2011
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  10. Frenzy

    Frenzy Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thank you guys for all the help
     
    Frenzy, Mar 8, 2011
    #10