[Ham-Computers] RAM & Performance - was Link for AVG 7.5

Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal) aaron.hsu at nbcuni.com
Wed Jul 23 16:55:51 EDT 2008


Hi Gareth,

3.5GB "usable" is about the norm for 4GB systems in 32-bit Windows.  For the majority of people, the difference between 2GB and 4GB is negligible (esp if you don't game or use memory hungry apps like Photoshop).  WinXP Pro's memory management was designed to preserve RAM and swap non-critical items to the pagefile.  There are some tweaks you can do to minimize paging, but the memory performance still won't equal the memory management in Windows Server or 64-bit editions.  For reference, here are some specs of my current system:

Intel E8400 Core2Duo CPU (3.0 GHz)
Gigabyte EP35-DS3R Motherboard
2x 1GB Corsair PC8500 DDR2 RAM
2x WD5000AAKS 500GB drives (independent)
BFG nVidia 8800GT PCI-e Video w/512MB
PC Power & Cooling 400 watt Power Supply
Adaptec 39160 SCSI adapter
HP LTO-1 tape backup
UMAX PowerLook III Scanner

I have Windows "tweaked" to disable paging the Windows "executive" (kernel), but there are drawbacks to this too.  I also have the paging file set to 256MB/512MB (min/max) - according to some performance counters, Windows typically uses about 60MB and I shutdown every night.  On occasion, it'll hit about 250MB after I play a few rounds of Battlefield 2.

So, to answer the original question, it doesn't make too much difference when moving from 2GB to 4GB in Windows 32-bit edition - at least not in my experience (and this includes some heavy gaming).  I also use Photoshop and do cut-edits using Premiere Elements - 4GB would definiitely help me here - but, again, most people don't use these so it wouldn't make a significant difference.

I guess it also comes down to price - if you have the $$$ and want to "max out" WinXP 32-bit, then go ahead and install 4GB.  For me, I might be more tempted to stay at 2GB and spend the money finding higher performance memory sticks (e.g. PC6400 @ 3-3-3-8 or PC8500 @ 4-4-4-12).  But, for photo/video editing, the extra 2GB would definitely help.


73,

  - Aaron, NN6O


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: Link for AVG 7.5

Thanks Aaron,

If I load a matched pair of 2GB sticks with 256 video ram plus needed boot ram I should get close to 3.5GB of working ram. Would not this be a little faster and eliminate some thrashing? Also, could I just about eliminate the page file? Memory is fairly cheap these days - even high quality ram. I do not run any games or video editing stuff.

Thank you,
Gareth
N1MSV


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