How much memory do you really need?

[rwolf]

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

There is a good article at toms with some interesting benchmarks.

What is interesting is the performance difference between cached runs of benchmarks.

 

[Rodéric]

I would guess it entirely depends on what you do with your computer...
(The OS you run, the apps you run...)
1GB seems the sweetspot for windows XP users running games at the moment.

 

[MasterBaiter]

AFA my experiences go...

When I went from 512 to 1 gig, it was a significant improvement.
The shift from 1 gig to 2 was much more subtle, but in a few apps (err games...) it has made a difference.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

1G was a good bang for me couple years ago.

next rig will start with 2-4G with some kind of upgradability i hope.

 

[Crusher]

I don't see much need to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB in my current system, but if I build a new rig next year sometime I'm pretty sure it will have 2GB and a 512MB video card. MMORPGs are not getting any smaller.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I did upgrade to 2Gb for a bit with Bubbles when I had an extra 1Gb lying around, but when I repaired/upgraded my daughter's PC I gave a Gb to her.

I didn't really notice any difference. Sorry, I didn't. I don't need 2Gb for anything yet.

My next rig yes, but this one is fine with one.

 

[Sonic]

Just upgraded from 512 MB to 1 GB in my computer and the thing now seems like it is screaming fast. And it is only an Athlon XP 3000+ or whatever the hell it is called. I thought it was time to upgrade the entire system because even WOW was jittery and was not stable at all. Just upgrading to 1 gig made a world of difference and everything is silky smooth now on the appropriate graphics settings.

 

[suryad]

I agree 1 gig is the sweet spot for XP 32 bit...and the same with Linux. I would go with 2 gigs minimum with XP 64 bit if I am using it only for gaming but for my upcoming rig I think I will have 8 gigs of memory.

 

[Kurt]

Playing quite a bit of IL-2 online. Used to be I'd get the 'disk swapping blues' on larger maps before I went to 2GB. Now I top out at ~1.2GB and see no more disk thrashing when switching tasks.

 

[Frank]

I think if you upgrade to 2 GB and turn off your swapfile, you'll notice the difference.

 

[Skrying]

2GB. For those who do it right. With 2GB get rid of the swap file, and then you still need to play a game like BF2 with the settings maxed to really notice it.

BF2 is the reason why the rash of 2GB move ups occured, at least that's what I've seen.

 

[zurich]

768 megs of DDR in the PowerBook G4, 640 megs of DDR in the Athlon XP HTPC. OS X zips along and I can have most apps I regularly use loaded into memory at all times (Safari, Address Book, iTunes, iCal, Mail, Adium X). The MCE XP HTPC box is starting to get a little long in the tooth, but I haven't decided what to do with it yet...

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

lol. bf1942 was the reason i went to 1G!

 

[Maintank]

I was surprised one night when I was getting some major stuttering in WoW. I tabbed out and noted I was using almost 1.1GBs of memory when I have 1GB physical.

Obviously I was starting to hit the disks. I was in complete awe too be honest.

 

[Cartoon Corpse]

boiling point's process footprint (size) is 2.17G. dunno about other games, but that one really milked my box. did okay once i upped swap space and killed all other killables b4 launching game.

 

[mreman4k]

I really need the 2GB of memory I have. Civilization 4, while gaming on a bigger than huge map with 15 other civs had a memory footprint of about 1GB by itself not to mention some in the swap file. The true reason I have 2GB though is because I do a lot of video editing. Now I came from 512MB earlier this month. But 2GB makes things really fast when multitasking (add the X2 I have to that too).

 

[Guden Oden]

I just pushed in another set of 1GB DDR2 DIMMs in my box, now I got 2. Not had time to test if I feel any difference yet, it's still too soon. I only just got in thru the door after a long afternoon of running thru stores christmas shopping, and sat myself down for some websurfing.

I hope the extra gig will help when flying in to ironforge from someplace else. That's where the majority of stuttering happens for me.

 

[trinibwoy]

I hope the extra gig will help when flying in to ironforge from someplace else. That's where the majority of stuttering happens for me.

Hey, I was looking for something (anything) to justify my 2GB. You're right, the flight from Ironforge is smoother

 

[Frank]

I just pushed in another set of 1GB DDR2 DIMMs in my box, now I got 2. Not had time to test if I feel any difference yet, it's still too soon. I only just got in thru the door after a long afternoon of running thru stores christmas shopping, and sat myself down for some websurfing.

I hope the extra gig will help when flying in to ironforge from someplace else. That's where the majority of stuttering happens for me.

Did you turn off your page files?

 

[Tim Murray]

Playing WoW on my laptop with 512 megs of RAM (I'm at home for Christmas) is kinda painful. Should upgrade to a gig over the break.