Is there a noticable difference between 4 and 8gb of RAM? (on vista ultimate)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have slow memory.
So does my computer. It has 667mhz DDR2 ram. 4 Gigs of it.

Memory is the only thing that doesn’t score 5.9 on my vista performance thingy (it scores 5.0)

I’m thinking of upgrading. My computer can take up to 1033 (I think that’s the right number. It’s over 1000 anyway)

My question is: Currently, does doubling RAM (in this case from 4 to 8) have the same effect on performance as it used to? Or is 4 currently more than adequate for heavy-duty usage (modern games, photo/video processing, 3d authoring)

And the second question, in theory, what is likely to have more of an effect on performance - faster memory at 4gb, or the same speed at 8gb?
That’s hypothetical, because it would be stupid of me to buy more slow ram. But the answer to that question will help me decide what’s more important - speed or capacity. And may help me decide whether to replace the slow 4 with fast 4, or replace the slow 4 with fast 8.

phew.

2

Is your Vista 32-bit or 64-bit? If it’s only 32-bit, it might not be able to use more than 4 gigabytes of RAM. Edit: for applications that slurp large quantities of data into RAM, like Photoshop, upping the memory to 8 GiB will improve speed, but you need a 64-bit OS and programs. I believe Photoshop CS4 for Windows is 64-bit, so running on 64-bit Windows and a motherboard capable of taking the 8 gigs of RAM will make a difference.

I don’t know the details of your particular motherboard, and it’s been a while since I looked at PC hardware, but you might have to either increase your clock speed (and hence processor-bus speed) or change the multiplication factor between the memory-bus speed and the processor-bus speed. These are settings found in your BIOS.

Increasing your memory-bus speed will lead to a faster system, but I have found that the slowest factor in overall system speed tends to be disk access.

Can you give us the model number and maker of your motherboard? Maybe we could fine a manual online.

3

As mentioned above, if you do have a 32 bit version of Vista, you could have 1TB of memory installed and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference.

Here is a nifty article explaining why.

4

Some time ago, I asked if any such benchmarking had been done on the Crucial forums and it had not.

Fortunately, you can very quickly see if moving to 8 GB would be of benefit to you: open Task Manager and look at the memory usage. If the peak is > 3.5 GB then you will benefit from adding memory.

BTW that 1033 probably refers to the speed of the memory, but do note that on some motherboards to have more memory, you must run it more slowly…

5

Even if you have 64-bit Vista, the only time you are going to get much use out of that extra 4 GB of memory is when you are running a program that has been specifically written to make use of your 64-bit OS. Which is to say, not all that often.

What do you use your computer for? Unless you are doing hard-core gaming, CAD work, or some serious audio/video editing, there’s not much need for more than 4 GB of RAM.

6

You forgot to add running VMs. Very memory intensive.

7

My Vista is 64bit. I have photoshop, premiere, 3ds max, and the latest games.

My Mobo can take a maximum of 8 at 1066. I know the 1066 refers to the memory’s own speed. It’s currently got 4gb of 677 memory. The memory is the only thing on the windows performance that doesn’t score 5.9. It scores 5.0.

VMs. Is that ‘Virtual Machines’? It’s not running any of those.

8

Correct. For instance, you might want to set up a VM running Windows Server 200x and SQL Server so you can experiment without using a live server.

If you go into Task Manager, how much memory are you using?

BTW Suburban Plankton’s statement is simply not correct. The application itself may not be able to use more memory, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot run that application alongside other applications and still exceed 4 GB in total.