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How much RAM is enough?

post #1 of 15
7/10/04 at 7:02am
Thread Starter 
Say for the next one or two years just to be able to play most games moderately well.

512 mb or maybe 1 gb?

I have RDRAM by the way, if that makes any difference.
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post #2 of 15
7/10/04 at 9:12am
Not sure how big a difference RDRAM vs DDR SDRAM makes (not much I'm sure), but I'm planning on buying a laptop in the coming weeks with 1gb PC2700 DDR333. Nowadays 512mb seems to be the minimum you can really get away with, at least in gaming. I'd go for the 1gb if you can afford it. Be careful with the RDRAM, if I remember correctly you have to install in pairs making for a difficult and pricey upgrade in the future.
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post #3 of 15
7/10/04 at 1:40pm
There is no such thing as enough RAM.
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post #4 of 15
7/10/04 at 3:41pm
I would say 1gb is the happy margin unless you are running a high end server. I have heard reports of performance decreases when using 2gb in a desktop.


RDRAM is slightly better than DDR when it comes to performance, but that edge comes at an extreme cost. And RDRAM has to be installed in pairs because it is dual channel.
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post #5 of 15
7/10/04 at 10:02pm
Ewolff,

If you don't mind my asking -- how much did you pay for your Precision 650? Those are some mad specs... I looked at the same type of deal last October when I was upgrading my XPS T-series (five years old) but didn't like the $3000 price tag on it.
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post #6 of 15
7/10/04 at 10:11pm
I bought it refurbed for 800.00.

When I bought it, it came with one 2.0 processor, 256 ram and a 40gb maxtor. I put in a bunch of stuff I already had, and I have been upgrading it since. It still has 2 years left on its 3 year warranty. That's what I love about Dell small business, even their refurb systems come with three year warranties.

I thought about buying a new Precision 750 system. They have some mad deals going on right now. Free quadrouple memory, free upgrade to 80gb SATA hard drive, video card upgrade, and 150.00 off. I speced out a 3.0 ghz Nocona with 1GB of DDR2 and a Fire GL PCI Express for about 1700. That is an insane price for that kind of system.

EDIT: I looked again and I can get a 670 system with a 2.8, 1GB DDR2, Fire GL, 80GB SATA for 1200 dollars. Must..... resist..... temptation.......
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post #7 of 15
7/11/04 at 12:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by StreetPharmacy
There is no such thing as enough RAM.
Once someone told me that for my old desktop rig, 1gig of DDR memory was too much because it made the system unstable...

Boo that, I'd take more ram anyday
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post #8 of 15
7/11/04 at 2:36am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the input, folks.

I only have 256 mb of RAM (limit is 1.5 gb for Dimension 8250)

I'm thinking 512 to 768 mb of RAM will be suitable for one or two years?

By then I should be able to have enough money to make my own computer rather than put so much money into RDRAM, but until then I just want a gaming machine that will hold for at least one or two years.
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post #9 of 15
7/11/04 at 3:09am
Like numerous other people posted, 1 Gig should be good for the time being.
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post #10 of 15
7/11/04 at 6:23am
Thread Starter 
1 gig will cost me about $530

That's basically a new mobo, case, processor (athlon) and 1 gig of DDRAM. :
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post #11 of 15
7/11/04 at 6:26am
That price does not sound right. Does you computer have PC800 or PC1000?
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post #12 of 15
7/11/04 at 6:29am
Thread Starter 
PC1066, price from www.4allmemory.com.
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post #13 of 15
7/11/04 at 11:29am
2gb of ram would own you could have 1gb be a ram drive and get something???? to copy all your os files over to it when you boot
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post #14 of 15
7/11/04 at 4:52pm
That would waste a lot of time. It takes awhile to copy over 1GB of data and being that RAM is volitile, you would have to load the data every time Windows boots. And I do not think it is possible to specify what data resides in memory.
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post #15 of 15
7/11/04 at 7:50pm
http://www.cenatek.com/product_ramdisk.cfm I dont think that will let you load windows on it but it would be great for a database
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