Should I upgrade to 8GB DDR2 from 4GB?

I only have... well HAD problems with those when copying large amount of data at the same time OR when running other applications such as Photoshop, VM, etc simultaneously.

As I wrote in the other thread - 80% was gone after adding 2GB RAM, the other 20% positive difference came from disabling the pagefile.

That's why I say 4GB RAM is a "gray" zone - allows light usage, but once you go a bit deeper you run into a lot of bottlenecking!!

Exactly! That's why I say - upgrade to 6GB first and evaluate the difference! 8GB is unnecessary for most people I think... including me.

 

I don't find them to be much different for the pages I visit. But browser really is another personal preference thing, no good or bad there. I like many of the features of IE, chrome is a bit too bare for me though for pages that needs its speed(like Gmail), it is night and day.

And why I have all three installed and used

 

I like Firefox the most with all addons it supports... it is really handy and allows good multitasking. Unfortunately it is STILL very buggy, laggy, slow I am using the latest beta 4.0 - MUCH better than 3.x but still laggy :-/

I get lags when typing, scrolling, etc. Much less compared to 3.x but still present.

Opera is my favorite in terms of a light, quick browser! Works wonderful! Unfortunately it misses options I enjoy in Firefox and the usability is quite bad IMO. I want to want to use Opera as a main browser, but Firefox still offers much more so I still use it as Nr. 1.

IE - basic browser which I use only for my business email Outlook server and as a reference for webpage viewing/development.

 

With all this wisdom in this thread I am surprised that no one has pointed out that Task Manager can report the page file usage. Go to the processes tab and and the Page Faults column. According to Microsoft, page faults means

That's the theory. However, I have a paging file set to 0 and task manager reports that I am getting page faults!

I think that the one point that is agreed on in this thread is that if 4GB is not enough then try 6GB. One side effect of using 8GB is that hibernation takes much longer.

John

 

page fault <> page file used.

page fault just mean a process try to read a memory location and it is not there. It could be an address mapped to DLL.

I am not sure about XP but Vista/Windows 7 compress the memory in the hibernation process and it only save memory that is 'dirty' as far as I can tell. I have a 6GB system that can resume from a 7k320 in less than 40 seconds. A 7k320 at most can read 80MB/s. So if it is the full 6GB, it would take more than a minute.

 

Back to the original question....

No... 4GB is already way plenty for Photoshop CS5. There's absolutely no need to upgrade.

Yes... we'll definitely need 8GB (or 6GB) if we have any nasty plug-ins for CS5. If we don't... sometimes we'll see an error message, a core dump or it'll be super sluggish. Depending on how many things the plug-in is doing... the more memory we'll need.

Summary: It's not PS CS5 but all the plug-ins that dictate if we need to get more memory

bye

 

If you only run one application at a time.

 

^that's easy. Those that run many stuff will automatically know to buy more memory. Those that are serious about the work they're doing, whether it's Photoshop, CAD, powerpoint/presentation, etc, will also automatically know to shut down everything else to devote a full attention to whatever magic they doing and can get to all the other stuff later

 

I didn't read a lot of this, but it seems there is a huge debate about 6gb vs 8gb... I always go with price on situations like this. If he currently has 1x4, hes gotta repurchase all slots anyhow, so going with 8gb would be close in price to 6, and the upgrade from 4 to 6 to 8 would be more expensive in the event that that occurs (2x2+2x1 +2x1 is more expensive than 2x4, not to mention that if he does have 4 slots, it would be better to fill them with 4gb in case he needed to further upgrade). It's almost always cheaper to buy ram in pairs. So, if he currently has 2x2, with 2 open slots, then purchasing a third 2 gig would probably be nearly as expensive as purchasing a pair. If he only has two slots available, do they even make 3gb sticks of DDR2?

To me, his options are stay with 4 or go to 8. I just upgraded from 4 to 8 and have noticed no difference. Of course, 7 eats up some more memory since I made the switch (around 2.2gb idle), but even so, I don't notice a difference in my day to day stuff, photoshop included. There could be a performance difference, but it certainly isn't enough for me to go "WHOA". If its 150 for him to upgrade, I'd spend 50 more and get a ssd, he's sure to notice that difference

 

First of all - how many notebooks with 4 RAM Slots do you know!?
Second of all - Buying in pairs is cheaper with 2-3$ in total - not worth considering.
Third - why does he need 3GB stick!? 4GB + 2GB = 6GB
Fourth - You get SSD and you start killing it with intensive pagefile usage because of lack of RAM!? Very clever!!

 

Not necessarily. Ask gracy123. She thought there was something wrong with her machine/HDD initially. All those suggested indicators(task manager memory usage for example) didn't tell her she lacks RAM.

He already has an SSD

 

It depends on how many applications you use and there memory requirements ,task manager shows physical memory usage history in GB,
so this gives you an idea of how much you use versus available ram,,more ram certainly will not slow your system performance at any level of usage,,at a minimum its more ram available to the operating system,,the price on ebay is about $125 for 2X4GB ddr2 667Mhz,,ram prices will go down,however it will take a while,,,
Cheers
3Fees

 

Widnows 7 RAM usage indicator is VERY misleading!
That was the reason it took me nearly an year to realize all problem I am having are because of lack of RAM!

Windows reports 50% RAM usage - you tell yourself - why buy more ram when apparently I have 2GB RAM free. That's quite a lot and is not used!

BRRRRR. Wrong! It IS in use for cache ("Standby" memory)!!

The "Hard faults per sec" can actually be used to determine the need of more RAM - if you get ANY while maximizing/minimizing and generally working with already started applications - more RAM is needed! I used to get 1-30 hard faults per application while multitasking Firefox/Skype/etc. with 4GB RAM.

With 6GB I get.... well 0

 

Not necessarily. My machine is in a stage right now with free memory as 0(because everything is used for cache, which is good). My hard fault graph still spike up here and there. I am only using 1/3 of the available RAM.

The only quick and easy way is to disable the page file and wait OOM hits you, then decide.

 

Yes, but exactly that means that your machine CAN benefit from more RAM!
You do not hit OOM because you have plenty of Available RAM that can be used! But you have none that is free, which means caching must continue elsewhere or nowhere at all! Too much free RAM is not good (wasted!), but 0 isn't good either (not enough).

I think we all need to learn distinguishing between REQUIRED amount of RAM to run certain programs and RECOMMENDED.

I would define it like that:

You have covered the REQUIRED amount if you don't get any OOMs with disabled pagefile. You have covered the RECOMMENDED amount if you always have more then say 20-50MB FREE RAM (with disabled pagefile) during normal usage!
The active usege of pagefile (hard faults per sec) indicates lack of RAM and necessity to use the "secondary", much slower RAM - the pagefile.

That's why we argue for 7 pages already - because IMO 6+GB is the RECOMMENDED amount of RAM for Windows 7 x64 and people start arguing that everything runs " just fine" with 4GB!
Both don't contradict, because 4GB + pagefile cover the REQUIRED but not the RECOMMENDED ----> hence it is very likely that 6GB or even 8GB RAM would make a noticeable difference! It is strongly individual however.

 

I upgraded to 8Gb last month (x64 environment ofc), the difference i see is: nada, zip, nothing. Besides showing off i have 8Gb I have found absolutely no use for the upgrade.

Mine is DDR3 though, but still the same.
The only thing where i notice 8Gb is when running a VMWare image or a VPC image. Before i had to limit the memory in a vpc (especially when running 2 vpc's) so my main OS had something left to work with, resulting in a slow system and slow vpc's. Now i can run the 2 vpc's with more memory then i did, and still have loads left for my OS, resulting in a nicely workeable system.

Other then that, don't do it. I develop software, do some photoshopping and and some starcraft 2 / Black ops once and a while. I cannot notice any difference (though i have to be honest, my system pretty much ran everything i threw at it already fast and at highest settings before the upgrade so it might not be completely comparable).

 

Yes, it can but when ? If I am not doing a big copy, these cache can always be used in a blink(running any program that requires it).

Windows has its own idea when to release the cache. If you copy one big file, you would soon see it use up all your RAM(as cache) no matter how much you have, 4GB/6GB/8GB. But once it is done or cancelled, these RAM would be put back to the free list, rather than stay as cached.

So at different time of the day, your 'free' varies.

EDIT:
BTW, if I don't need more than what I have but still add 4GB, it ends up being a self created XT equivalent. As those 4GB would become cached file content, over time. This however doesn't work for people who reboot frequently as unlike XT, the OS cache would build up over time. Perfect for my usage.

 

Any RAM above your usage pattern is only useful for cache. So if you are not doing frequent disk based activity, of course you are not going to see the difference and in a sense wasted.

 

Not whom you were responding to, but I know of 6 off the top of my head; 4 workstations, and 2 non-workstations. The 4 workstations are the HP 8740w, HP 8540w, Lenovo W701 (and W701ds), and Dell M6500. The 2 non-workstation are the HP Envy, and the Clevo/Sager P150HM/NP8150 (and its relation P151MH1/NP8130). There are probably others as well.

 

I don't really consider a workstation a laptop simply because it is not really to be put on the top of your lap.....

The envy is the only example that came to my mind. But my point was that the majority have 2 slots anyway.

 

Well, little old me puts my 17" 8740w on my lap all the time. >.> The 8540w is a 15.6" workstation, too. Still, that's largely a preference issue (notebooks on laps). There are also some of those MSI/Asus notebooks with 3 memory slots. I do agree that the vast majority of notebooks (especially ones that would use DDR2) have 2 slots, though, and you won't find more unless you go higher end/specialty. Of course, by the same token, most of the people that don't need/get higher end/specialty don't need more than 4 GB of memory either.

 

You're not suppose to be putting a laptop on your lap, just FYI.

Also just because your situation called for over 4gb of ram, does not mean everyone's situation is the same. Atm you are taking very very broad anecdotal experience, and trying to pass it off for some type of reference point. Most people will not need over 4gb of ram with Windows 7 x64, you have yet to prove it. Toms article is about as useless as some of AnAntech's articles on Apple products (intelligently biased). Your posts are unorganized, highly confusing, and highly untested. You just did what appeared to be knee jerk solutions to see if it worked, instead of taking it step by step, testing, and recording for differences as well as taking into account many many many variables.

Anyways my tests concluded that more ram does not benefit in copying of files, or responsiveness as responsiveness can be attributed to make factors such as where the file you are transferring is located, vs where the program that you are using is. This is exactly why I was using my SSD, so that my SSD would not be affected by I/O limits.
For example: Take a short stroke hard drive with a 40gb partition, and the other 420gb (500gb hdd) into a storage partition. Now copy and paste a large size folder from the storage partition, to another hard drive. Check for responsiveness, I can guarantee it will be severely limited with more ram or less.
Now perform the same test using the short stroked partition with the operating system install and any programs you are using while transferring in that partition. You will notice significant increase in responsiveness.

I can go even further and use procmon, and test responsiveness with 4gb and 12gb of ram using procmon (gives me accurate times of tasks, and when they ended in terms of reads/writes, other variables like time for processing to GPU and LCD are so minute it would not mater)

 

Unless you start reading threads post by post until you reach the end, it will always look unorganized to you:

I can't prove anything remotely, neither can you! Suggestions how to determine the individual necessity of RAM have been made, I guess you missed those too while jumping from page to page.

I thought you were talking about "experts"? Or are "experts"-experts only if they support your theory? I have yet to see those "experts" that say 4GB is absolutely enough and don't recommend upgrading! Please share a few links....

 

....the m6500 has 4 ram slots... there are others, usually workstations.. So you're saying his notebook has an open slot? unlikely. It's usually a 2x2 configuration. MOst ram is sold in pairs, so you have more of a selection, and a better chance of finding a better price (not to mention a better product). . If he does have an open slot and he has a choice to buy a single 2 gb or a single 4gb, the cost wouldn't be a lot different. IT would cost more if he figures out later that he needs the extra 2 gig, now he has the initial 2gb investment + the 4gb

Or are you suggesting that he buys a 4 gig and a 2 gig?? If he does that, I'd be surprised if he saved $20.

edit: cheapest I can find in 4+2 is 68+28 + shipping, so I was a little off on the savings...but thats for some generic no name stuff. savings if bought like that is $40. Anyway, if I were making the decision, I'd just go with the 8 and be done knowing I can't do any better... but that's me.

 

I don't know what you want to say. Most likely, OP has 2x2GB. I have no problem finding sources selling 1x4GB and it is slightly(very) above 1/2 of the price of 2x4GB. Gracy123 was saying just get 1x4GB is enough. Which was what I did(and apparently she did too).

 

... he has 4gb now... 1x4db would be 4gb,, Ithought she was suggesting getting a 4gb + 2 gb... if that works, great, he saved $38. I am just saying that I'd rather spend the extra $38 and never have to worry that I made the wrong decision, or bother upgrading again (which would end up costing more).


That's just my opinion, I am not going to bother speculating on the performance benefit of something when the cost is so small. Again, just my opinion. (((thats for 6 vs 8, keeping what he's got is an entirely different decision)))

edit: haha, wow let me just leave everything I said up here for evidence of my stupidity I forgot he already has the 2gb stick haha wow... lets pretend that didn't happen

 

The likelihood of having a single channel 1x4GB is IMO very low(or else I don't think he would be talking about 2x4GB module). It is much more likely to be 2x2GB.

 

As chimpanzee says, he most likely has 2 x 2GB - that's the standard configuration...
Buying 1 x 4Gb will cost 40 bucks and he will have 6GB which is very likely to be more than enough for his needs.

 

Enough for what, you have yet to put one link where experts say 6-8gb should be a standard for all users. Tomshardware's article is based more for power users, or gamers which is evident that yes 8gb is quickly becoming a standard.

Most users will not need more then 4gb how did I come up with this conclusion? I sell/repair laptops, I've worked with thousands of laptops and out of the hundreds of customers only perhaps 10 have ever really needed above 4gb. I myself run tests to see what type of laptop or desktop a user will need when buying, and I won't be recommending more then they need.

Fine want to hear it from someone else. Personally I won't waste much time with this.
Memory upgrades from Crucial.com - How much memory do you need
How Much Memory Will Windows 7 Need? Operating Systems and Memory Footprints

How much RAM is enough?


Here I will even use Tomshardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264-8.html

If you want post here on notebook forums, ask how much ram is recommended for most users for Windows 7 64 bit.

 

Ok I'm afraid the price for ddr2 memory will eventually go up so I ordered 8GB ram from Ebay which is cheaper than local computer shop prices.

I think with my recent upgrade to SSD drive I will make use of my laptop with photoshop while I'm on the road. I'll hold off on my laptop replacement until ivy bridge or haswell.