memory

[coot]

just curious about the benifits of 4gb of pc2100 vs 1 gb pc4000 . i would like to load up with memory, have been wondering about that issue for some time . seems to me , that with 4gb ,you would hardly ever go to the hard drive except to save . even with slower memory the system would have to be faster , wouldn't it ? i don't game , so scores aren't that important , real life preformance is . is anyone running lots of memory , and does it make a difference . i would hate to spend that kind of money and find out it was a waste . any input about would be a great help
thanks
ed

 

[DaveSimmons]

Most applications run "in memory" even with 512MB. You won't see any speed increase unless you run programs like PhotoShop or Access, and even for them only if you work with very large images or databases.

Out of curiousity, what apps are you running that make you want to overclock to PC4000 levels?

 

[Jeff7]

From what I've read, if you've got to ask if you need 4GB of RAM vs 1GB, you probably don't need it. 4GB seems to be reserved either for people who run very memory intensive CAD programs, or do a lot of photo editing with large files, or even WAV editing - I've used Goldwave, which is a nice program, but it likes to cache things to the hard drive. And when I work with 1hr+ WAV files, 1GB of memory isn't enough to hold it all. 4GB would easily handle it, but I'm not going to stock up on RAM for an app I rarely use.
1GB of fast RAM, or even only 512MB should be fine.

 

[coot]

i "play " with 3d programs ,strata, and bryce for instance , i was just wondering if it would make a difference in rendering speed with lots of slower memory vs a little faster memory , do i have to oc ? sure , i know how , why not go faster ,maybe 4000 is a stretch i realy wouldn't want to push that hard thats why i thought maybe slower mem would be a bit more stable . i could be way off base in in my thinking thats why i asked
thanks
ed