[w1ls0n]

hiya dudes,

i want to max out my ram but dont know which one to buy. here's my spec (i got this using a program called belarc advisor)

Operating System System Model Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600) Enclosure Type: Desktop Processor a Main Circuit Board b 1.80 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board:ABIT AN8 Series(NF-CK804) 1.x
Bus Clock: 201 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 02/17/2005 Drives Memory Modules c,d 320.06 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
146.33 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

CE7930V GKD872L SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182M [CD-ROM drive]

MAXTOR STM3320620A [Hard drive] (320.07 GB) -- drive 0 1024 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A2' is Empty
Slot 'A3' is Empty

i use software packages such as adobe after effects, photoshop etc so ideally i want to stick 4gb in but i dont think that will work on XP - is that true? what would be the maximum gb i could put in for that spec and what memory speed, etc?

cheers!

[Cew27]

with 32 bit you are restricted to 3 and a bit gig so another 1 gig stick of the same spec as your current ones would be ideal however you could get 64 bit vista or xp and use 4 gig+ but with photoshop and all the adobe products more ram will run the application smoother

[w1ls0n]

thanks - i think i'll just see if i can get a copy of 64 bit xp (i hate vista). ill upgrade the motherboard and cpu eventually cos they are both quite old now but for the time being do you think this ram would be compatible?
Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-18)


(for use with xp 64 when i get it)

thanks again mate

[Cew27]

eeerm i think so it depends on the motherboard and weather it supports ddr2 ram with such a high clock speed but you can always underclock it (bios permitting)

[Carbon]

There is no realistic scenario in which the 4GB will give you a performance benefit, to be honest. If anything, you'll just get headaches trying to run x64. I would skip it.

[Cew27]

also why hate vista? with sp1 released it is shaping up nicely to be honest

[w1ls0n]

i havent used vista since the release of sp1 to be honest. i was just put off because it didnt support my monitor at 1608x1050 and the fact it uses to much ram when idle.

carbon - what makes you say that? i would have thought 4gb would at least given me some improvement on my current 1gb, even though im using a fairly slow cpu (which is going to be upgraded eventually).

what headaches do you mean?

[Carbon]

Originally Posted by w1ls0n

carbon - what makes you say that? i would have thought 4gb would at least given me some improvement on my current 1gb, even though im using a fairly slow cpu (which is going to be upgraded eventually).

what headaches do you mean?

I'd get another gig - 2GB is really the sweet spot. When you go x64, all your apps need to be coded with larger memory registers (as that's the point of x64 - to address more memory). When you do that, guess what goes up - executable size and memory footprint! So it's not really worth the performance decrease for a little performance increase - if you're going x64, you might as well get 6 or more GB, but for most that's unnecessary.

Headaches include finding x64 drivers, mostly, as well as x64 applications. It's not as hard as it was before but you'll run into problems. If you're going to do it, dual boot it.

[Desertfish]

Originally Posted by Carbon

...but for most that's unnecessary.

That's the key statement here Carbon... Looking at the applications w1ls0n is using, he is one of the exceptions who could do with a lot of memory in his system. I'm not entirely sure where your statement comes from that 2GB is the sweetspot in terms of memory but I presume that this is based on the fact 2GB is more then enough for running Windows and office applications. Once you go into gaming, the 3D rendering is getting off loaded onto the GPU anyway while (as Alex pointed out in another tread) Windows has more than enough with 2GB of system memory to do the additional work... If this speculation is more or less correct, then I do see where you are coming from and I'd be happy to agree with you.

Having said that, w1lson here is using Adobe applications which are still only producing 2D content. As such, his system RAM is a lot more important than his GPU and in this case, the 4GB of RAM will give him a performance increase that will be pretty helpful.

I totally agree with your reasons for staying away from 64-bit though. Yes, the fact that 64-bit supports up to 8GB RAM could indeed sound very attractive to someone doing DTP but in order get the performance increase, you HAVE TO stick 8GB in your system. Anything less is a total waste of time.

Besides, w1ls0n, Adobe products do offer some nice features in order to increase performance without having to go 64-bit simply by using scratch disks and image cache adjustments. Before you decide what way to go with your upgrade I think you should have a read on this link: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...ernalId=318243

Basically, by using a scratch disk, you are allocating virtual memory to Photoshop in the same way Windows is using a page file as virtual memory. You have to set the scratch disk to a different physical hard disk in your system for this to work though because the whole idea is that your CPU can read all the required information about Photoshop and the image you’re working on from your HD, your RAM and your virtual memory (=scratch disk) in one CPU cycle. You could take this a step further by using a second additional HD to move the Windows PageFile to.

You mentioned that you will upgrade your motherboard and CPU eventually anyway so from what you mentioned, this is how I would go about it:

For your CPU, I would go at least for the E6600. If you can afford it, yet an E8400. CCL-Online is currently selling an OEM version of this CPU for about £100, and choose a good motherboard for this.
Get yourself a 320GB HD in order to replace your current Maxtor IDE drive. If you can afford it, also get 2 extra small HD’s for your Windows PageFile and your Adobe scratch disks. Again, CCL-Online is currently doing 40GB SATA HD’s which are ideal for this and they only cost about £25 each. You can move the Windows PageFile to one 40GB HD and the Adobe scratch disk to the second 40GB HD. Together with your 4GB of system memory, you should have a fairly specked system geared towards DTP. As for your Graphics card, anything with 256MB DDR2 will do. I currently got an XFX 8600GT 256MB DDR3 but that is only because at £45 it was the cheapest dual DVI card I could find and it’s probably overkill already for what I use it for.

As for your current Maxtor HD, get yourself an external HD enclosure and use that drive as your backup. Now, if the motherboard you’ve chosen supports 1GB Ethernet, you could get a second Ethernet PCI card to stick on there. You got a 320GB HD already with only 146GB available space. This means that backing up all that data from time to time can take a lot of time, even via USB2. If you can connect your backup drive to your system using a 1GB Ethernet port, you’ll be backing up data a lot faster.

Cheers:
Chris

[Mike0001]

Originally Posted by Desertfish

I totally agree with your reasons for staying away from 64-bit though. Yes, the fact that 64-bit supports up to 8GB RAM could indeed sound very attractive

Linux supports up to 64Gb of RAM!