1GB or 2GB RAM?

Is there big Noticable difference between 1GB and 2GB of RAM?

 

it all comes down to what program you're using it for, some only need a few hundred megs while others need between 1 and 2.

 

To answer your question: depends on what you do. You need to clarify exactly what you use your PC for.

IMHO, no matter what you do on your PC, if you can afford it you should buy 2GB. It seems to make XP happier, as well as the latest games.

 

I'd mostly do light gamming, alot of Downloading Music and Watching Movie's.

 

It comes down to affordability, as nick_danger said. Any operating system is going to feel a lot smoother with higher levels of ram, and programs are certainly going to respond faster.

As far as games and intense processing, the beneifits are obvious.

 

1GB will be enough for your needs

 

I would get 1x 1024MB if possible, so you have a slot open for later expansion (if you need it).

 

Very good suggestion.

 

Up to a point.
There is *no* benefit in having more RAM than your OS+running programs use.

At the moment, my computer is using a total of 511MB for *everything*.
That is with Winamp going, Firefox with a dozen tabs open, a SSH client, Trillian (with connections open on almost every IM protocol), Daemontools and 3 or 4 other programs. Just for kicks, I loaded up a 1.2GB movie file as well, and the figure went up to a whopping 580MB.

The most it has used in the last 9 days (since my last reboot) was around 1.5GB.

And this is coming from a heavy gamer, and a programmer who likes to have lots of things open simultaneously.

And even with those 1.5GB in use, it still isn't noticeable on my 1GB RAM system, because most of the data in memory is often unused for very long periods, which means you'll see zero performance difference if it has to swap a few hundred MB to the pagefile.

So no, your OS will not "always feel smoother with more RAM"
It will if you actually use that amount of RAM, but most people don't, and hardly ever need more than 1GB.

I'd do as Chaz said. That'll leave room open for future expansion.

 

Jalf is right, you don't need more than 1gig of ram really, unless your doing VERY heavy photo/video editing.

 

new games such as oblivion and fear will stutter at times becuase you are out of memory, if you game, its a good idea to get two gigs.

 

This raises a very interesting question ... On desktops capable of running in dual-channel, having two sticks of RAM allegedly increases performance. The RAM being sold by several vendors is touted as being dual-channel -- does the same performance boost apply in notebooks?

I would THINK that it would, and if so, depending upon how much of a performance boost you may get, this might be a key in determining the kind and quantity of RAM you get.

Thoughts?

 

Well, that's just it, isn't it? If your applications use more RAM than you have, then you need more RAM! Just because you don't notice a difference when your PC is accessing the pagefile doens't mean that we or the OP will not notice a bump to 2GB. Whenever the debate of 1GB vs 2GB comes up, I often think back to this lovely report done by Tom's Hardware. The proof is in the numbers, not by how you feel.

I know for a FACT that my Windows loads 13 seconds faster since upgrading to 2GB. I know for a FACT that my average frames per second in HL2 went up by 15fps. I also know for a FACT that when I ALT+TAB or WIN+D out of a game, the desktop redraw is now instantaneous and I can instantly access whatever other program is running, unlike before. I also know for a FACT that my pagefile is no longer active... because I don't need it.

I believe all currently sold laptops are dual-channel enabled. It's important to ensure that you buy two sticks of the same RAM to ensure compatibility.

 

Even with Dual Channel, the speed is insignificant. When I bought my notebook, I opted for 1GB and bought another stick to max out my notebook. I know that for some time now, that there will be no need to upgrade memory.

 

Er, no? Oblivion ran smoothly for me.

Yes and no. Not all processors are equally bandwidth-starved. On a Pentium 4-based system, running without dualchannel memory is a major disadvantage. On Athlon 64, you'll still note a difference in framerates in games, but it's not something you can't live without.

On notebook systems, which tend to have more CPU cache and such, it's if anything even less of a deciding factor. You should still be able to notice a difference in game framerates, but it's not like singlechannel will make your games unplayable.

Do I?
What if I use an application which, when it loads, fills, say, 800MB of data into RAM. It then *never* uses that data again, and frees it when the application terminates.
Do I need to buy another 800MB ram for this? The only difference this will make is if another program needs memory while this is running in the background. it will then take a bit of time to push the 800MB of data to the pagefile. Once that is done, my performance will be exactly the same as if I'd had more RAM.

Ok, this is an extreme example, but the point remains. You don't need as much RAM as the total combined working set of all processes. Because many processes allocate memory they hardly ever use, and so, it can and will be pushed to the pagefile without a noticeable difference in performance.
That is one of the main reasons there *is* a pagefile. It would be useless if it wasn't for the principle of spatial and temporal locality. Programs tend to use only specific chunks of their data around the same point in time. During that time, there is *nothing* lost by having everything else in the pagefile.
Later, it'll probably use some of the data from the pagefile, but by then, it won't be using most of its other data, which can then be pushed to the pagefile with no significan performance penalty. It is also the reason there is a CPU cache. It is the reason CPU's have internal registers.
The entire memory hierarchy is built on the sole assumption that programs work like this. And the funny thing is, they do.

If you actually look at the numbers in that Toms article of yours, you'll see exactly what I'm saying. They have a convenient division into "First run" and "cached runs".

That's because the game only uses a small amount of memory for any given level. The first time you enter the level, you may get lower performance if you "only" have 1GB of memory. The next time, or after you've moved around on the level a bit, you get within one or two percent of the 2GB performance

But hey, if you feel it's worth it to double the amount of memory for that kind of performance improvements, feel free.

Oh, really? I'd have thought the important thing was how you felt. If the system felt nice and fast to you, it's nice and fast enough.
I do realize that this isn't the proper "Omgz0rz, I must overclock so I can get 300 more points in my 3dmark score" attitude, but I'd still say what matters is what the end user notices, and not what a synthetic number in the corner of the screen says.

Good for you. I know for a fact that you forgot to mention how long your computer takes to boot, so we know what kind of relative improvement it gave you. You also didn't say what your computer actually does when it boots. Does it load Windows and that's it, or does it start, say, Steam, Teamspeak, antivirus, an IM client and a dozen other things?

I know for a fact that you forgot to say how you measure your "average frames per second". I also know for a fact that Halflife 2 on my computer, at 1600x1200, with full antialiasing and maxed detail level, runs silky smooth here at 60+ FPS.
And I strongly suspect that your "average frames per second" aren't average at all, but are taken from what your Toms article calls the first run. From before the game has had time to load the resources it need into memory. And yes, in that case, having more RAM does help. But when I play HL2, I tend to stay on each level for a handful of minutes at least. Which means that for the last 90% of the time, my performance is just as good as if I'd had 32GB of RAM.

No it isn't. I know for a fact that it isn't, because it still needs to reset the graphics card, which isn't instantaneous. But yes, you're right, alt-tabbing out does often rely heavily on the pagefile, and yes, having more RAM helps a lot in this case. But do you often alt-tab out? Is it worth buying an extra 1GB memory just to be able to alt-tab out of a game faster?

Yes, and I know for a fact that just because a pagefile is active doesn't mean that it significantly affects performance.

For someone doing light gaming, and someone who asks if there is a "big and noticeable difference in performance, the answer is no.
If the question had been "is there a measurable difference in performance, when measured in terms of alt-tabbing speed, the framerate in a newly loaded demanding game", then yes, in those cases, the performance difference is measurable and noticeable.

 

I think it really depends on what you are doing. I am not a gamer by any means. I recently had the opportunity to do a little experiment. On a laptop with 2GB of RAM, I started Firefox, Opera, Windows Media Player, Open Office Writer, and a PDF program. The RAM on the laptop was then changed to 512MB of RAM and the same tasks were performed. There was no noticable difference in load times, program starting times, program response, or program switching times.

Now obviously these tasks are minor compared to modern gaming and the load they put on a notebook but what I am saying is that it all depends on what the user is using the computer for. For some people, 1GB (or even 512MB) would be enough.

 

Unless you use several intensive programs at once, like I'm talking running doom 3, world of warcraft, and photoshop at the same time, I agree that 1 gig ram is plenty and any more would be wasting money. I use 384 mb and I dont have any problems haha...

 

Didn't realize I needed footnotes for every statement...

I timed it from when the Dell logo goes away to the time the taskbar appears. I did not change the number of services running in the background or change my AV or anything. It used to take ~31 seconds, now it takes ~18 seconds. 31 - 18 = 13.

There's a fun benchmark utility included with HL2: Lost Coast. I ran the benchmark three times before the upgrade, rebooted, installed new memory, then ran it three more times. The benchmark gives you an average, so I took the average of three averages to get my before VS after fps. I play the game with the following settings: 1920x1200 with all effects maxed + 2XAA and 4XAF. Before I averaged 42fps, now I average 57fps.

Given the definition of the word "instantaneous", I assumed that was enough to explain it. If you would like value ascribed to that word: 11 seconds. That's how long I had to wait for the screen to go black, then chunk-draw the desktop from top to bottom, and be able to smoothly move the mouse. Now, the screen is black for less than a second and I do whatever I want immediately.

I fully comprehend the function of the pagefile and the means by which programs access memory, but the simple fact remains that having more than 1GB of RAM has a tangible real-world effect. There are many other factors at play given the different computers out there, yes, but you can't differentiate between "heavy" and "light" gaming: HL2 and BF2 use as much RAM on my PC as it does on everyone elses regardless of how much time is spent playing. A "light" gamer may only play the soon-to-be-released BF:2042 a little bit, but if it runs better on 2GB RAM... The end of the argument is that 1GB is fine for many people, but those same people may benefit with 2GB in both subtle or extreme ways. If you can afford it, do it, you lose nothing. Can we agree on that?

 

well, if you want to talk about facts, sorry, FACTs, you do.

No, it *may* have a tangible real-world effect. It obviously does for the things you use your computer for, but that doesn't mean everyone benefits from 2GB RAM. (Or that everyone benefits enough to justify the extra cost)

Did you notice that BF2 basically didn't benefit from more than 1GB RAM in the Toms article you linked to?
And I'd say a game like HL2 that runs smoothly no matter what you do to it, is a bad example of the "need" for more RAM...
Most people who run it get better FPS than their monitor can handle in the first place.

No, you lose the money spent on 1GB RAM.
But performance-wise, you lose nothing, and in some cases gain a lot. I agree with that.

Actually, the point I wanted to make was simple.
First, you gain *nothing* by having more RAM than you use. Going from 2 to 3 GB will not make a scrap of difference for the vast majority of people.
And second, even if you use more memory than is physically present (say, you use a total of 1.5GB, but only have 1GB RAM installed), performance isn't neccesarily affected in the long term. (Yes, loading might take longer, since it then has to push unused data to the pagefile, but after that, things might actually run just as well, as the Toms article showed) Only if all 1.5GB is frequently accessed does it become a real problem, since the computer is then forced to constantly page data in and out. But that situation is actually pretty rare. (But it's easily noticeable if you dare run modern games on a 512MB system. Here, you get constant paging, and not just the temporary slowdown when the game is first loading data that 1GB gives you)

So it depends on how much you're willing to spend, and how much performance you're after. There are three "plateaus".
1: Everything fits into RAM. No paging is required, ever.
2: Everything *that is used* fits into RAM. But some paging is required to shuffle unused data to the pagefile, but once that is done, no paging is required.
3: The amount of data that is actively used exceeds the amount of RAM. You get constant paging, harddrive thrashing and lousy performance.

I'd say a lot of people can live with the middle scenario, especially as it's quite a bit cheaper. The third scenario should be avoided at all costs.
And note that no matter how much RAM you have, you can't get better performance than on plateau 1.

 

Just a quick correction to your statement, there, Jalf:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/13/how_much_ram_do_you_really_need/page7.html

As you can see, they compare BF2 on the next page in terms of consistency. With a lower amount of RAM, the percntage of scores below 60 fps on BF2 with insufficient system memory is much higher than the percentage with 2 gb of RAM. The difference is very noticeable from 512 mb and 1 gb, and though the difference would be less between 1 gb and 2 gb, the texture sizes could still force the computer with 1 gb of ram to access the harddrive more.

So, basically, if you have a slower drive, the difference could be more noticeable. Also, if you have a few applications open in the background (enough to possibly even fill up 512 mb) the difference between 1gb and 2gb could be more pronounced.

For light gaming though, 1gb should be plenty

 

1 gig should be more than ample. you might want to consider upgrading later when the memory prices come down . they always do in time.

 

The common sense thought would be if your running 800 or so megs of programs then why would you need 2 gigs of ram. This however in incorrect. If you have 1 gig of ram that one chip is processing all 800 megs. If you have 2 gigs of ram one may process 400 and the other may process 400. (give or take some megs on each). If you have more ram it relieves stress by spreading out the load which therefore allows the computer to run much faster and smoother. If you do any gameing which has moderate to high graphics definatly go with 2 gigs budget permiting. If you dont want to or cant spend the money just get 1 gig now see how it goes and if you need to upgrade to 2 do so. Hope this helps you out.

PS- Oh yea dont forget, if your video memory shares with your ram that will take away memory, so factor that in as well.

 

I was talking about the difference between 1 and 2GB though. We can easily agree that 512MB is just too little, and sucks no matter what...
But check the previous page to see the difference (or lack thereof) of 1GB vs 2GB.

You are getting two unrelated concepts mixed up. What you are talking about is basically single- versus dualchannel, and yes, that can make a noticeable differnce in games performance, especially on fast desktop systems.

But it has nothing to do with the total amount of RAM. Just with how many modules it's distributed over.
You can get singlechannel 2GB setups, just as you can get dualchannel 1GB or even 512MB setups.
The RAM module performs exactly the same, regardless of whether it's a 256MB or 1GB module. (assuming clock speeds and timings are the same, obviously)

 

Yes, agree. Photoshop is quicker now and i get my desktop back way quicker.

After all the back and forth on this thread, I have not heard from anyone that they are NOT happy they got the extra memory

I wish I had 4 gigs for the price of 2