Conclusion – 8 GB Improve Efficiency and Comfort
Our testing brought us to a clear conclusion. If you often use several memory hungry applications simultaneously, then there’s really no way around upgrading your system to 8 GB. Working and especially switching between applications is much more efficient than with a typical 2 GB configuration. Also, it would even be feasible to run a modern 3D game that already takes up more than 1 GB of memory by itself while having another application with a large memory footprint running in the background. Thus, load times in Windows are a thing of the past, as is the constant swapping of Windows components to hard drive. The best part – such an upgrade is not even overly expensive, as 8 GB of memory are already available for as little as €135.
Experienced users can give their system another little performance boost by deactivating the paging file. However, you should always keep an eye on the system status, as you may otherwise suddenly find yourself confronted with a system crash.
Large memory sizes are especially worthwhile when virtual machines such as those provided by VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC are used. With enough RAM at their disposal, users no longer have to stop the individual VMs but can simply switch between them instead.
Nonetheless, even veteran users should expect to encounter a few setbacks when using 8 GB of RAM. Be prepared to encounter driver problems - and not just on exotic hardware either. Some system tools may also spring a nasty surprise on you. On the other hand, falling memory prices should allow 64 bit systems to spread fairly quickly, which in turn should mean that driver issues should be sorted our fairly quickly.
Those that don’t possess a 64 bit version can order one directly from Microsoft and will only have to pay shipping and handling fees. Users with an OEM version of Vista aren’t quite so lucky. Here, it depends on the goodwill of the PC vendor as Microsoft does not offer direct upgrade support for such versions. In the worst case, the user will be forced to spend more money to buy another licence.
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if you have an Vista Key just get an Vista 32 dvd or an vista 64 dvd
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.
so the essence of the story is, 8gigs of ram makes your computer run faster. theres a surprise
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.
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?)?
(It's joedastudd, obviously. Sorry, Joe, this was not intended as a low blow to your masculinity
)
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??
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})
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
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