is 2GB still a LOT of memory?

Oh 3-4 years ago it used to be 256mb was standard and 512mb was a BIG upgrade and since then a gigabyte has still been a huge amount of ram but all of a sudden I get a laptop with 2GB of ram and it's like wow cool, big jump
is 2GB still a lot and leave a lot of room for comfort?

 

If you are still using Windows XP, it should be a lot for most purposes. However, with Windows Vista, 2GB of RAM is almost the standard amount required for smooth operation. 1GB and Vista will be slightly sluggish.

 

Yeah I think so, 2GB is more than enough. 1GB will run Vista fine, but 2GB will really give you a good experience.

 

I'm not sure I would call it "a lot", but it's definitely still above average. I would bet that maybe the OS after Vista, 2GB will be pretty standard, and 4GB+ will be performance / enthusiast level.

 

Here's how I put it:

With XP, it's not ALOT but it's more then sufficent.

With VIsta, it's about middle of the road.

I got a new Vista PC in January, and it shipped with only 1 gig of RAM and Vista is constantly crashing programs and slowing down to a crawl loading simple applications. I can't even think about running two applications at the same time, 1 Gig just isn't enough with Vista.

 

Once upon a time, it was...

 

I hope you're referring to 1GB as low end and not 2GB...

 

This should give you a good idea.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=129628

 

It's not just the amount, either, the speed plays a big role too.

 

Erm, yeah I meant to put "mid-range". Sorry about that. Was thinking about how 1Gig was low-end.

 

I agree. You know you can have 2 gigs of "poopy" ram right? Spend $500 on 2 gigs of ram, then get some corsair valueram for 100 bucks..you'll see what I'am talking about.

 

Time will come when we will say "Is 128GB too little" for Windows Future System. Advance of technologies.

 

2 gigs... a waste in ubuntu, lol... before when I was running XP I had 1 GB and usually it hovered around 200-300 megs free, so I'd think 1 is adequate for most things (I had to kill some extra programs when gaming, and didn't run anti-virus ), but 2 would probably be best. It's only really 40 extra bucks if you buy a stick off newegg.

 

Speed plays very little role, within similar generations. Like, 2-3% differences between each 'tier' of 'speed.' So, yeah, not that important. Size matters, in this case.

Why?

The purpose of having a lot of RAM is so that your computer doesn't have to pull data off the HDD very frequently. When it does, this is called a Page Fault (you'll see this term later on, or have before, but I won't go into what it means more precisely). A page fault is bad. It causes lots of lost time. It's one of the reasons that SSDs are looked toward so eagerly-- when a page fault occurs, data must be pulled. That data will take time to access if the HDD has to speed up to spin. An SSD would grab it quickly.

Returning to RAM.. Sorry for the tangent.. If you have a vast quantity of RAM, even the slowest RAM on the market is going to be faster than the fastest HDD. Thus, if one had a vast quantity of RAM that was slow, but a small quantity of RAM that was fast, the vast quantity would win out, since the small quantity would need to retrieve data from the HDD more often. Please note, this isn't just simple things as copying files, or starting a program. As a program changes state, it often has to retrieve data that it doesn't keep in memory, or will have to pull stored data that you aren't aware of.

The OS itself also has to do this very frequently, and silently.

Going back to this...

4GB RAM wins out. If you can have it, get it. You'll need a 64bit OS, however, to utilize the entire memory space due to the memory address allocation limitations of 32bit processors/OSes. Technically Windows since 2000 Kernel has had the capacity to, with an x64 processor, to emulate 36 bit processing, and thus allow for a full 8GB memory space.. but.. Alas, Microsoft's own technicians were unable to address their documentation which stated this.


I am a developer. I use visual studio extensively. I wish I had more RAM. My Desktop has Vista 64 bit, and 4GB of RAM. My OS, upon boot, chews up 40% of that. 40. %. I have no bloatware to note, not even an AV program (i should do something about that..)..

Meaning by default vista, if it has 4GB available, will chew up 1.6 GB of RAM. As you can see, then, 4GB is good. 2GB is handicapped. In that state, Vista will be purposefully limiting itself in order to allow you to do what you need to do..

with 4GB, everything runs very smoothly. My laptop with 2GB and vista tended to run a bit sluggishly, in comparison-- but it was also a single core, so that's not entirely a fair comparison.

Regardless if you do any graphical work, or work with developing, or really any program that consumes a large quantity of memory space.. Get 4GB and the 64bit OS. Nevertheless if you do that, you'll definitely want to dualboot the 32 and 64 bit, if possible, in case of Driver incompatibilities. Vendors take a long time getting 64bit drivers to market. Don't blame Vista, blame the people really responsible

 

I think it would really help if you guys that are running out of memory try slimming down your OS, be it XP or sepecially Vista. Slimming down can come in the form of disabling services, and if you're more able, to strip out features of your OS. Features such as Vista picture gallery, the built in media center, shadow copy (make sure you back up regularly) and on and on.

Out of the 2.4GB odd install file of Vista, I was able to stripp over 1.4 GB out and my 'Ultimate' edition consumes about 4-500MB on start up under both 1GB total RAM and 2GB total RAM.

 

2 gb is now standard... 4 gb is quite enough... 8 gb IS A LOT

 

I had 1 gig for so long, then i started getting games like Company of heroes which eats up your ram no matter what graphics setting you have. I thought it was my graphics card at first, i had a 6800gs so i upgraded to an 8800gts. That wasn't the case, it would still stutter, so i dropped 2 gigs of ram and i was suprised at how all stuttering in all of my new games disapeared. it was definatly worth it, with vista coming around i am thinking about 3 gigs, especialy for crysis and what not.

 

To be honest, I don't understand how a lot of you people say you need so much memory just to run Vista. Now don't get me wrong, Vista definitely is a pig, and I have no idea how some manufacturers can sleep at night selling Vista PCs with only 512MB. But when I boot up my 1GB Vista machine, the OS takes around 512MB to startup, which leaves another 512 to run your apps. Now that may or may not be enough for you, depending on what kind of apps you run. But its hard for me to see how some of you are saying that just to boot up you need 1GB or more

 

Umm, I think you have your terms mixed up..Since a "Page Fault" has NOTHING to do with running out of memory and using hard disk space as an alternative.

 

Vista uses as much memory as you give it.

Read up on "Superfetch" if you want to known the details - it prefetches from disk into memory the applications you use a lot (even before you start them).

 

you'd be crazy to spend 500 bucks on 2 gigs of ram for a laptop. If you are an avid overclocker and have nothing but premium components on your desktop, then maybe spending a bit more on the ram would be acceptable(assuming they have heat spreaders and higher quality IC's)

Btw, Valueram is "poopy" ram. It is still adequate for a laptop though.

Corsair, mushkin, crucial, hynix and some of the other big boys all use very similar IC's, if not, the exact same ones(samsung/micron)

 

Can anyone explain a real difference between good ram and "poopy" ram? I bet most people couldn't tell the difference if they took the Pepsi challenge.

 

Reliability. When you get RAM, you can test it. Just like any other industry, there are good brands and there are some unreliable brands, all making seemingly the same things.

 

On a laptop..as long as you use the correct speed DDR....no matter what brand you use you cannot get more speed. Unlike a custom built desktop (which I like to build) in a notebook all your memory speeds and timings are locked in the Bios. So all ram (as long as it supports the chipset speed..in the case of Santa Rosa that is 667Mhz) runs the same.

Now about Vista....I see a lot of peeps here that do not understand it. (the developer above included) Vista learns what your most used programs are, and starts to "pre-load" them into memory as it learns your preferences. XP (and anything before Vista) does not do this, your programs reside on the HD until you click to use it, then it is loaded into Memory. This as you know takes awhile.

Vista, by preloading it into memory...creates an almost "instant on" since memory is so much faster then the HD. The more memory you give Vista, the more programs it will load. (though as stated, the 32bit version can only access just over 3Gbs of it)

When you start as program (like a game) that is not preloaded, the preloaded ones are flushed out right away and the new program loads from the HD just like all prior OS's.

Vista will work fine with 1Gb...but the same PC with 2Gb will seem much faster...since it can preload a few most used programs...they will open much faster. Its a neat idea and works very well, though I hear it does not pre-load games...too bad!