RAM: 2 gb vs. 1 gb

Is there a significant difference in the performance of a system with say 1 gb RAM vs. a system with 2 gb? I'm a future W3J owner and unfortunately it only comes with 2X 512 mb sticks installed. I'll be running CAD software, playing some pretty graphics intensive games (Doom 3, FEAR, etc.), and watching movies on it. What is "dual channel"? Would it be impractical to replace one of the 512 mb sticks with a 1 gb because "dual channel" isn't achieved?

 

It depends if you need it... and for the most part, there isn't a whole lot that is going to benefit from more than say... 1.5gb... but in looking at this right now..... I'd maybe take out one of the 512mb sticks and add a 1gb stick. That will give you the added ram you'll probably need and will give you a lot more than dual-channel functionality ever could...

 

Depends on your apps and how many of them you're running at once. You can always go with sticking with 1 GB for now and then upgrade down the road when the RAM is (probably) cheaper

Dual-channel basically lets the chipset spread memory accesses across both slots to get more memory bandwidth. You get the most advantage if you have a pair of matched DIMM, although you do get some benefit even if not.

 

if the performance boost of dual channel on the current chipset is any sign, i wouldnt worry about it cuz the boost isnt much.

 

How about 667 memory vs. 533? 2X 1 gb 533 is about $100 less than 2X 1 gb 667. Worth the money?

 

The experience I've had at work is that it depends a lot on your workload. And with the typical laptop user's workload, yeah, it isn't the most critical thing.

 

Ram performance on a graph is an S shaped curve. Performance is exponentially better as we upgrade from 256 to 512 to 1gb and but after that, the performance growth slows down. An extra 512 to 1gb gives a significant boost (1.5-2 gb), but may not be cost effective for everyone.

Only in specific applications can you see the difference. I use 1gb on my desktop and it is blazing, while my brothers desktop has 2gb. Personally I cannot tell the difference, unless I use it for hardcore gaming.

 

That is right. With 2GB of Ram you won't be able to tell the differnce unless you are gaming. Then even with say different speeds...IE 533Mhz and 667Mhz you won't be able to tell a difference.

 

i had 1 gig and then 1.5 and i couldnt tell the difference.

 

If your application is graphics intensive, then more RAM performs better. For college work, I don't see any application benefit beyond 1GB.

 

I think a combination of RAM and faster harddrive would make things faster.

 

Yeah, the benefits of a fast hard drive (both in seek time and throughput) shouldn't be discounted.

 

If the budget is not an issue, more RAM and fast hard drive would be great.

 

There's also a known problem with Windows XP SP2 with Hibernation over 1GB of RAM. There has been a leaked hotfix, but it's still not released as an official fix for the problem and there are still bugs with the fix. Upgrading to 2GB for any laptop will therefore pose a problem for users that use hibernating as a feature, I myself use it since portability / battery saving is a must for me..

 

Very true dvx1000 ! I used to have that problem and have solved it with the patch. It is not official but I managed to get it and I can say it works well. The only thing I have noticed is that hibernation with an external disk connected sometimes results in the unstable config afterwards. Otherwise it really does the difference. Here you can get the hotfix.
Hope it helps. BTW everybody talks about 2GB being good for gaming. I work with the 13000 files website in Dreamweaver every day. I use 10 other applications in the background. The total mem allocation is around 0,8 - 1,5 GB. 1GB is OK, but if you work on anything that needs more resources (image editing, movies editing, games, apps with thousands of files etc...) I recommend 2GB. It is becoming more and more justifed to have it every day. And notebooks have two memory slots. Buy at least 1x1GB stick and you will have the chance to get more afterwards.
And yes - games - did you know that FEAR can be run with the textures set to max? Or Quake 4? Ati x700 256MB handles it so so. It surely uses all 256MB and takes more around 250-350MB from the main memory. Ati x700 with 128MB DDR uses all 128 and additional 500-600MB RAM (Quake4). Add there Windows and other stuff taking the ram and you'll get very close or over 1GB! Far Cry with 1 GB is much more fluent than with 512. And with 2GB is perfect. It has over 32700 files! Most of them are sounds and textures. What do you think where does it stores the needed files while you are playing? Did you notice that when you load the level and press fire for the first time, the HD LED lights up and then you hear it (and with 512MB it takes a while). And that happens with the all NEW things that need to load? Whatever the speed of your HD is. Once it loads it into the RAM you get the fast, fluent game. the bigger the RAM, more stuff stays in it - and the game is more fluent. So I'd better save some money on the disk and buy more RAM. Especially for the notebook - disk uses much more battery than RAM. Of course movie editing and sound editing people have different issues here.

Cheers,

 

You must not be an engineering major then...

 

I'm going into engineering next year. How much RAM is suggested for CAD programs?

 

One note -- if you happen to play a lot of Battlefield 2, you'll find that 2 gb RAM is a very significant improvement over 1 gb. This game is a real memory hog.