1024mb or 512mb?

[tuna_fish_sarnie]

I have recently built a new system (spec below) with 512mb of Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM. I use this machine mainly for gaming. I am currently running Windows XP pro. I use Photoshop CS for photo editing etc. I also have Office XP installed. I was considering buying another 512mb module of the same memory to utilize the dual channel capability of the motherboard chipset. Is it really worth bothering just for the extra bandwidth? Will I actually see much, if any improvement generally in speed? I'm not sure whether my setup even uses anywhere near the full amount of 512mb currently installed, so will another 512mb just be wasted?

P4 3.0C 800fsb, Zalman 7000 CNPS7000A-CU
Asus P4C800 deluxe
WD Caviar 120gb SATA
Audigy 2

(still using my old GF4 Ti4600 until something significantly better comes along that is worth the upgrade!)

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

Thats a good question....but there is another angle to the question that I wonder about...if you were going to add 512 would it be better to go dualchannel 512 or single channel 1024.

I guess there are benchmarks out there somewhere.

Either way Id do it.....just cuz the chicks dig it when you got that much Ram. I had to downgrade when word got out that I had 1g Ram..too many girls calling me and stuff. cie la vie.

JP

[stroyal]

Dual Mem is def faster, and from what I have read and seen Win 2000 and XP take advantage of mem in exes of 512. I also read that it helps video in some benchmarks.

[John Prophet]

yeah, and with photoshop doing editing, he may have some pretty large files open etc.

of course you could always do your own little tests etc to see what is what.

you could check now with your 512 and run the performance monitor and see how much of the "swap file" you are using and/or how much of your physical ram is being used....if you are maxing out the 512 and using the swap file a lot then you might be better off to just put the extra 512 in sinlge mode and have 1024.

If you arent using the swap file much even with photoshop having big files open then you might be better with 512 in dualmode...which would speed up other stuff besides photoshop etc.

[tuna_fish_sarnie]

lol@chicks diggin' the extra memory! Seriously though, I got the 512 memory module cheap as a one off from a friend, it is new and works perfectly. My budget was stretched a little anyway with the CPU, board and h/d upgrade. I knew I had the option of putting in another module, but did not really want to spend unless it was worth doing it.

[stroyal]

At the level of performance that we are talking about you will barley notice a differance most of the time.

[John Prophet]

well yeah..we arent talking about any massive differences here anyway. When you see all these benchmarks about this motherboard "crushing" that one etc etc..usually they mean like 3-5% lol.

It might depend on the size of the files you tend to have open in photoshop....if they are making you use the swap file a lot then the extra ram in regular mode would help speed things up...since the swap file (hard drive used as "virtual memory") is wayyyyyy slower than regular ram.

[stroyal]

Ya, like JP said large swap files would be the slowest, but as is you have a very fast machine.

[tuna_fish_sarnie]

Thanks for the advice all. Like I say, I mainly run games, so system RAM does not really come into it. The photos I edit are mainly from a 5mp digi camera or scanned A4@300dpi, so nothing too taxing there. I do burn DVD's, but again I don't think this matters either. Maybe I will save the money for a significantly faster Graphics card (whenever that comes out!)

[stroyal]

If you play new games other than sims, a vid card would be the best upgrade. You would def notice the dif then