6GB versus 4GB versus 2GB ram

isaak

Boredom and a slight interest convinced me to do this.

Sorry for the messy presentation ..the one to the left is the 4GB, middle is 6GB and on the right is the 2GB. All DDR2 ram, thanks BlueMak


These were all run with my Q9450 at 3.2GHZ (400x8).


RAM speed was 481mhz (962mhz)


So I'm not really sure what accurate conclusions can be drawn from this, except that the 2GB ram is the fastest, followed by the 4GB followed by the 6GB. In conclusion I don't think the amount of RAM effects 3dmark performance.

comp_ali

That's weird .

__________________

BlueMak

Is it DDR2, DDR, DDR3 or what? I mean all of the sticks. Also, do you have prefetch enabled? If you have then perhaps that slows down things since the system tries to load things into memory and you get that slight ms difference at times.

__________________

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

isaak

as in the vista prefetch which preloads applications? I probably do.

its all DDR2.

I really would have expected a greater margin..these anomalies are pretty much exactly the same (as you cannot expect to get the EXACT same score over and over with the same setup?)

Zardon

it is not really a very accurate system of measuring performance. sandra is a better tool for memory scoring.

Lowfat

It will be a better tool if you want to show memory bandwidth yes, but won't show what the affect is on gaming benchmarks.

In all reality ram barely has an affect on gaming either. I'd doubt you'd notice a difference between 2GB, 4GB or even 6GB.

__________________
27" iMac: i5 750 * 80GB X25-M G1 * 4GB DDR3 * HD4850
Stacker: 2600k * P8P67 Pro * 4GB DDR3 * 80GB ioXtreme * 30GB X25-E * (2) HD6950 * Asus D2 * Enermax Revo85+
HWD: (2) Xeon E5649 * EVGA SR-2 * 6GB DDR3 * 8800GTS * 1000W Antec
FT01BW: (2) Xeon E5645 * EVGA SR-2 * 6GB DDR3 * GTS210 * Gigabyte 800W Odin GT
Storage: (2) Sans Digital TR8M-B * 29TB

BlueMak

Any speed difference in games would be...a joke, nothing more. More memory is good, but why you would expect to see a better speed by adding more, I don't understand. You will see, with prefetch on, programs loading faster, perhaps, but to actually affect the gaming sessions, I don't think so.

__________________

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

comp_ali

Of course you will , it has an effect on FPS as well , you may notice that the ram size requirement change from game to other. And the system perform the task on the ram because it is very faster than HDD speed.

__________________

OldBuzzard

You will if you are trying to play HL2 with the Fakefactory cinematic mod. I doubt that it's even playable on 2GB. In fact, it's almost unplayable on a 32-bit OS.

__________________
When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

comp_ali

Or GTA IV

__________________

Zardon

of course - but that futuremark app has absolutely no direct bearing on either - no one 'plays' a futuremark benchmark. We are more interested in real world testing and game engines.

Actually in some instances high specification DDR3 can have an impact on frame rate as it helps the throughput across the system bus. As for the 'amount' - depends on the game and the operating system, some games you can notice a difference between 2gb and 4gb as the game will page less often (as other members noted in this thread).

Tipstaff

Let's not forget the backbone that is running the whole thing: the OS. Sure, depending on the game, more RAM translates into faster load times, less paging, and so fourth, but the same is true for the OS. Having a faster OS increases the overall performance of the system, and that filters down to the game running on it.

The tests you really need to run are ingame ones. Try out the benchamrk tests, such the Resident Evil 5 PC benchmark, Company of Heroes (I think the demo has the test.. can't remember), or Lost Planet Extreme Condition. Plus if you have any games that have allow for benchmarking, try those too.

BTW, there is a caveat in the test. If the test was done on an Asus P5K Pro, and these were all 2GB sticks of RAM, that means at 2GB there was only one stick in there, and it was running in single channel. At 4GB (2 sticks) it would be dual channel, and at 6GB, 2 sticks would run in dual channel while 1 would be single. As you can see running that board with 6GB in it isn't exactly ideal, and could effect overall performance when you do your real world tests.

__________________

kris23

the results probably wouldve been more reliable if dual-channel was used for all of them

__________________

isaak

Wow..really expanded over my day at school lol

My ram configuration is 2 x 2gb and 2 x 1gb...not sure if that means dual channel (2 x 2) and dual channel (2 x 1) probably not..

It is true that games have different requirements, and while playing around on 2GB, I admit it did seem a little slower compared to a larger amount. I noted that vista took about 60% of it. Now, thats about 1.2gb. I also noted that COD4 multiplayer uses about 800mb. That would mean that on a vista system 2GB ram is simply not enough, but I agree adding more ram wouldn't exactly speed up the game.

@Zardon, I didn't use Sandra because for some unknown reason it causes my computer to lock up and I have to restart.

I was also interested in testing 4GB 1066mhz ram versus 6gb 800mhz. Of course, whichever was faster I would stick with (my sister has the 4gb 1066mhz)

Tipstaff

Since you are running in pairs, both would be running in dual channel, so you're good to go configuration wise.

__________________

kris23

look at the CPU-Z though, it says single channel...... so that means that he may have installed them improperly for dual-channel.

isaak, on intel boards, you need to use every other slot to enable dual-channel, as in.... put the 2GB sticks in slots 1 and 3 and the 1GB sticks in slots 2 and 4..... THEN you should be running better then....

__________________

procupine14

yeah i gotta say something seems a bit funny with that CPUZ reading. In any case I never really see much effect between 2 and 4gb of RAM say under XP where the OS itself uses considerably less resources. As for vista I, pretty much, tell all my clients if they are going to game they need at least 4GB of RAM. Vista just uses too much of 2GB to allow for gaming headroom. It just doesn't end up well in the end IMO. As for anything more than 4 at this point? Seems like a little overkill for gaming to me. I haven't really seen any instance outside of photoshop and some other production programs where 6-8GB of RAM is SUPER useful. I mean sure in vista every little bit helps but even my graphic designer friend doesn't ever really fully uitilize his 8GB in his new system. Kind of one of those future proofing "nice to have because RAM is dirt cheap compared to a few years ago" scenario.

__________________
HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU

GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU

Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU

asedsa

First of all, dual channel with the same size of memory modules is the best memory configuration, second 32-bit OS will only recognize 4GB RAM (minus 512 mb or 1024 mb VideoRam of graphic card = max 3.25 GB under 32-bit OS), you should try to play Crysis with 64-bit OS and 6GB RAM, you will see positive difference in favour of 6GB instead 4GB.

BTW results of 3dMarks depend of Vista configuration (drivers instalations, chipset, sata, memory turbo instalation, some bios settings.......etc)

DJ BIG T

if you took the time to look at his systems spects on left side you would see hes using 64... btw welcome to DH!!!!

__________________

isaak

Yes I am using 64bit.
Kris, I have that configuration installed. BIOS setting perhaps?

Procupine, it was slightly noticeable..but my main concern was the amount of ram left...both could run it fine, but obviously as stated before 800mb for COD4 multiplayer could spell some doom.

Tipstaff

CPU-Z is only reporting 2GB of RAM though, so if there was one stick of 2GB RAM at the time that snapshot was made then that makes sense.

__________________

isaak

Yes...I was slack with this test. I think I should forget this one and throw in a 6GB 800mhz versus 4GB 1066mhz test. Would have to try and get sandra working to please zardon ...

That cpu-z screenshot I'm sure was taken when I only had 2GB in