3GB "magic number" work on a F3SV-X1?

I just bought this laptop a week ago:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220163

If i install a 2Gb stick instead of the 1GB to make a total of 3, will i still get the performance boost i keep hearing about.\?

 

There is no guarantee, the 3GB magic number thing is a theory. A couple of tests came up showing that 3GB gives a significant performance gain even over 4GB (probably 4GB not being recognised makes the memory run in single channel, whereas 3GB allows for flex mode). However, RAM is cheap, and we would be very grateful if you did try it out and let us know.

 

Well the reason i ask is because in the product description it doesnt say
"Built-in 256MB VRAM Turbo Cache 512M with 1G Memory, Turbo Cache 1G with 2G Memory" on the X1

Knowing that most people think the turbcache is what accelerates things so much with the added RAM, i wanted to check to see if i would get any performance boost, as the turbcache is the only difference between the A1 and X1; that i can see.

A link to the NE site:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=f3sv&x=0&y=0

 

An extra gig of RAM never really hurts, so I won't tell you not to get it, all I can say is we can neither prove nor disprove the 3GB theory. 3GB will give you more RAM overhead after TC takes hold of some of it.

Short story: We can not predict the effect of upgrading to 3GB more than the normal benefits of adding a gig of RAM.

 

Does my laptop even have TC? I know nothing about TC.

Oh, and if I do get the 2 GB upgrade, would I have to do anything to activate the TC benefits once the extra RAM is installed, or would it do it automatically?

 

TC is turbocaching, it is the video card borrowing system RAM for graphically intensive programs (like games). I believe all of the 8000M series uses it.

Edit: on ATi cards it is called HyperMemory

 

I'm not sure on the details as to why 3GB would be superior to 4GB as Alex notes, but I can say that adding more ram can't hurt anything except your wallet. Remember the 4GB cap, of course.

 

Well I might buy the RAM, as I'm 99% positive i have TC on my card, looked it up under display properties. Too bad I didn't know this before, wouldn't have wasted the money on my first gig. Oh well, mabye ill give it to a friend. If i do, ill post the results for you guys.

 

If you already bought an extra GB I would wait before buying more RAM. There'll be very, very few real-life application configurations where you will see the added benefit of another GB above 2GB. It won't hurt, but IMHO the extra benefits are too small to make it worth the money (including the wasted GB).

 

If you are running XP or vista32bit dont bother, I have run 4gb under XP and it actually made performance worse (with Photoshop using large amouths of RAM) in theory it all sounds good, but when I used it the results were worse performance than running with 2gb. However if you are running XP64 or Vista64, go for it, I can run CAD, Photoshop and Indesign all at the same time!

32bit OS'es just do not utlize more than 2GB ram.

 

if they dont ultilize more than 2 gb than how can the performance be worse than 2 gigs? Wouldnt it be the same? I mean I got 4 gigs on a 32 bit system and its faster than using my 2 gig system IMO

 

It can be worse if the memory management routines deal poorly with large address spaces.

 

im going to have my F3sv-A1 the next week, i want to know if i can install 1GB or 2GB RAM

is good 3 GB in RAM?

gl

 

between 3GB and 4GB you should pick 3GB, is something I believe most of us can agree on right now.

 

Yeah, and between 3GB and 2GB it's not so clear.

 

Well thats what I thought as well I mean surely it would be better?

I was mainly testing with photoshop, with 2gb RAM and oprning a large photoshop file, basically the file would load into RAM untill the RAM was full then it would switch to the HDD and page file (writing virtual RAM to the HDD) which slowed down opening the file.

With 4gb installed opening the same large file under XP32, it did this crazy thing where it would open the file untill the RAM was full then it would overcompensate and write a massive chunck of memory in RAM to virtual RAM (page filing on the HDD) so in the end there was more information written to virtual RAM than in physical RAM, thus actually greatly slowing the opening of large files.

In task manager you can display the amount of page filing, so it is easy to tell whats going on.

As I mentioned this is mainly tested with Photoshop using large files, I often run using 3 to 3.5GB ram, so I do not know the effect for gaming, but from talking to our IT staff in this testing they were saying that 32bit OS's cant really utilise more than 2GB and our own test confirmed that.

On the other hand under XP64 and 4gb, the same file that opened in XP at 89 seconds, under XP64 with 4GB it opened in 12 seconds, which is amassive improvement.

There is no harm in buying 3 and trying it, most people would not clock over 2GB ram anyway, and if you do decide to install a 64bit OS you can fuly utilise all your RAM.

Would be interesting for someone to try it and test it on other software and gaming? but for myself Im sticking with 2GB under a 32bit OS and then when I upgrade to Vista64 I will install 4GB, when I ran 4GB under XP32 I ended up reducing it back to 2, although I never tried 3.

 

dang, sounds like i shoulda bought an extra 2GB stick instead of an extra 1GB

o well, its too late now, maybe my games will run fine for now, and ill upgrade later.

 

For gaming a 64-bit OS would be a nightmare. Many popular games will work, but a lot of newer ones without patches and older games, or games that aren't well known big names will not work. In addition you have to find good drivers for all of your equipment (drivers affect game performance a lot more than performance in 2D applications). If you are doing video and photo editing, I don't doubt that a 64-bit OS and 4GB of RAM is certainly what you want, but gaming is a lot different. In the future I am sure 64-bit OS's will be great, but right now I think you made a wise decision