Test Setup : Vista Workshop – Performance Boost with 8GB of RAM

Tom's Hardware > Articles & reviews > Vista Workshop – Performance Boost with 8GB of RAM

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Test Setup

04:20 - Monday 11 February 2008 by Daniel Schuhmann
Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: Microsoft, Windows, Vista
Categories: Hardware

Table of content:

Test Setup

We used the following hardware for this test

Test Setup
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.00 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2-Cache
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 Rev: 1.0, BIOS: F7 (02.01.2008)
Memory	takeMS 8 GB 4x 2 GB DDR2-800 CL5.0-5-5-15 TMS2GB264D082-805AP
Graphics Card	Gigabyte GV-RX385512H Radeon HD3850 (RV670) 512 MB, 670MHz, 1660MHz
Hard Drive	Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500 GB, 7200 rpm, 16 MB
DVD-ROM	Samsung SH-D163
PSU	Cooler Master 850W RS-850-EMBA

Software and Drivers
Operating System	Windows Vista Enterprise
Chipset Driver	Intel Chipset Drivers 8.3.1.1009 (24.09.2007)
Graphics Driver	ATI Catalyst 8.1 16.01.2008

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leexgx 11/02/2008 07:43

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if you have an Vista Key just get an Vista 32 dvd or an vista 64 dvd

tstebbens 12/02/2008 12:45

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I've been using 8GB with Vista for a while now. I can play Crysis or CoD4 whilst simultaeneoulsy video encoding in the background without a single stutter... very smooth. Well worth the money IMHO.

davedrave 12/02/2008 11:52

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so the essence of the story is, 8gigs of ram makes your computer run faster. theres a surprise

joedastudd 12/02/2008 01:24

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There should be a bench marks showing how big a performance increase you get as opposed to 1gb, 2gb and 4gb. Sure it might be cheap to do, but is it worth the hassle of spending the money, waiting for the order, installing the ram and doing the necessary tweaks?
I like the charts on the max supported ram per OS, but you need to show the user why they may need 8gb of ram, instead of "because you can" being the reason.

Coren 13/02/2008 02:36

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I agree with joedastuff, what I'd like to know is why getting 8GB is worth it when compared to 4GB, not 2GB or less. 4GB has been proclaimed the "sweet spot" for Vista a while ago, so why would we go for the extra 4GB, especially considering we'll have to re-spend our money on DDR3 if we decide to upgrade a year or two from now?

tsebbens' comment is pretty encouraging though. Encoding and gaming are two things I do quite often. But the fact that you can do both at the same time really a consequence of the 8GB or RAM or is it due to the processor (I'm guessing it's a quad?)?

Coren 13/02/2008 03:05

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(It's joedastudd, obviously. Sorry, Joe, this was not intended as a low blow to your masculinity

)

JohnRG 13/02/2008 09:51

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Hello, I'm new to the forum but have read articles on this board for years.

My question is, where does readyboost fit in. I have vista home premium 32bit with a Q6600, and a 2 GB USB for ready boost. About to swap it with a 4 GB readyboost stick, will an 8 GB USB make a difference??

leexgx 14/02/2008 04:24

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there be no speed boost haveing more ram

what more ram does is prevent Slow downs due to running low on ram so pageing happens

allso one other Point that is an small error about going past 4gb on an 32bit program it cant happen
if it gets correted an 32Bit program can only allocate 4gb of VM space even with 8gb of ram No page file would be used at all as the program can only use 4gb of space (in games i have only seen this happen on Supreme commander when there is an High amount of units on the map can use quite alot of ram or allacate alot of Vm space taht can be fixed by patching the game.exe file to make it support Large mode so it can use upto 4gb {default is norm only 2gb})

leexgx 14/02/2008 04:27

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readyboost sucks once you got more then 1gb of ram (2gb installed or more) as it does nothing to speed things up as ram is faster then Flash and allways will be the Readyboost can give slower performace

as an test on my pc readyboost makes my games judder when ever the flash drive is accessed

leexgx 14/02/2008 04:31

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note for toms Please add an edit button, you gone as far as make this look an little more usefull with quotes and reporting bad posts but Cant you Re link this to the fourms agane as no one realy uses this comment system much, allso some USA content is missing on the UK web site as well i have to switch between USA and UK to get both content

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