Going from 1Gig to 2Gigs RAM.

[Cobra360]

I am considering getting another gig of RAM. I currently have a gig and I think I saw someone saying a while back that ot makes a big difference in Lockon. I was looking at benchmarks of FEAR and the extra gig of RAM made no difference to that game but is lockon different?

 

I currently have:

 

AMD 64 3200+ (754)

1 Gig PC3200 (DDR 400)

6800GT 256Mb (AGP 8x)

 

I just want a short term upgrade for the time being as I need a new motherboard (939 and PCIe) and a new everything if I want to upgrade further. Is it worth going up to 2 gigs of RAM?

[Tabasco]

I am considering getting another gig of RAM. I currently have a gig and I think I saw someone saying a while back that ot makes a big difference in Lockon. I was looking at benchmarks of FEAR and the extra gig of RAM made no difference to that game but is lockon different?

 

I currently have:

 

AMD 64 3200+ (754)

1 Gig PC3200 (DDR 400)

6800GT 256Mb (AGP 8x)

 

I just want a short term upgrade for the time being as I need a new motherboard (939 and PCIe) and a new everything if I want to upgrade further. Is it worth going up to 2 gigs of RAM?

Hmmm....this is just a suggestion, in hind sight I wish I would have bought a 2gb kit, meaning two 1gb dimms of ram, a lot of the motherboards have problems with detecting the fourth dimm slot, and you cannot run your ram at T1 timming, 1-1 synched....you have to run it at T2, you get a performance hit right there, the reason I'm bringing this up cause while I understand you are eventually going to a 939 mobo, you are still going to want to run it as optimised as possible, right? why not by a good matched set of 2gb/1gbx2 and not eat the cost or suffer a performance hit of runing ram in all slots? Do you understand what I'm trying to say here? I mean it wouldn't be a loss of investment, you could use this same ram in your new system, the main reason I didn't do the same because the 2gb ram kits that where availible when I was building my sysytem intially didn't have very good timmings and no where near the speed I could get from 512 ram dimms, things have changed since then though, you have a better selection now, my personal view or prefference is to never run ram in more then 2 slots, believe me I have tried but I wasn't very pleased with the results.....as far as your main question is concerned about the worth up upgrading to 2gb of ram, this is just my opinion but yes, I think it would be worth it, the time is comming soon where a lot of the newer program can and will make use of this ammount, better to be ahead in the game then to be behind, just one less thing to have to worry about:P

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

ya with your cpu, your memory will default to 333mhz instead of 400mhz when all slots are filled. As for the 2gb option, I wouldnt advise anyone to get 2x1gb sticks unless they really wanted 2gb and only had 2 slots, if your pc can handle 4 sticks of 512mb at its default speed of 400mhz then you will get slightly better performance from that than 2x1gb sticks at the same latency settings.

But if you seriously want 2gb, which i will say, once i got 2gb i will never go back to anything lower, then yes it is worth it, but only if you can do it with minimal problems, like timmings etc, as amd socket 754 with all slots filled with pc3200 = 333mhz instead of 400, so go for the 2x1gb kits if you really wanna upgrade and you have 4 spare memory slots, cuz it wont default to 333mhz with just 2 sticks of ram in it.

[Tracker]

Sounds like your a progressive computer user =). That means you will eventually purchase what you need to keep up with technology progress. Currrently technology is pushing us even beyond 2GB. The 939 has a 128bit data path and drives the ram directly. If it was me, I would go with 2 - 1GB sticks and leave my other 2 slots avail for progress. Cover the empty slots with tape to keep the dust out until they are needed =). Keep in mind the 939's have a faster bus speed and I haven't read any tests where the faster ram has been put in the 400 bus mobo's (capacitive loads on memory pins are tuned to certain freq). If you can't find a memory that will run in both boards you may be stuck with buying 2GB twice :(

[Starlight]

I agree with EVIL-SCOTSMAN, 512 MB sticks usually perfor better than 1 GB sticks. It's just a matter of fact. Same brand, same model, same latency, 512 MB sticks overclock much more easily, and with motherboards equipped with four RAM slots, you could always go to 2 GB whenever you need....

[Callsign.Vega]

AMD 64's don't like 4 slots, will force you to use 2t timmings. That is what I have to use because I bought 4x512. I did some testing swapping them out and lost about 4% overall performance by going 2t instead of 1t. As for 2gb over 1gb, especially for lock-on, I am not so sure. When I run lock on and check memory useage under a high-stress replay, I still have over 1gb free and available. It's most likely right on the border where your system would start looking for a page file with 1gb.

 

I like the two GB, but if I had to do it over again I'd go with 2x1gb sticks, they have some newer ones out now that have almost as fast timmings as 512 sticks and pretty cheap.

[Cobra360]

Thanks for all your suggestions. My big problem is the board. I have a MSI K8T Neo and it has only three slots. Right now I have 2 512mb sticks of the same brand but it's a unknown budget brand, I'm afraid. Money was a bit tight at the time. So i was either going to get a 1Gb stick of said unknown brand and just shove it in or, or pay a lot more and get two Corsair matched 1Gb sticks, leaving me with two 512 sticks gathering dust on a shelf some where.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

I wud just get another 512mb. no point in getting 1gb stick of ram just for another 512mb gain.

 

1 and a half gig of ram is plenty and as for lomac, on huge missions, i havent seen it use more than 680 - 700mb ram, which would still leave plenty of room for your system.

[iceden]

I suppose there was a in-game performance difference when I went from 1 GB to 2 GB RAM. But where I noticed it most is reloads. After you have been in cockpit, and you go out to change payload/AC or whatever, you will be able to get back in the game much much faster. That impact was more noticible than anything else in LockOn going from 1 GB to 2...

 

Game stability, frame rates, alt+tabbing, etc etc, I noticed nothing. If there was a change or improvement it was not measurable by common interaction or usage.

[Tabasco]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575

This is some really good ram, both set offer T1 @2 case lantecy which is awesome for 1gb ram dimm, heck it is even good for 512 dimms of ram, but if you want to push the fsb the one above supposedly doesn't overlock clock very well from it's stock settings, but it is rated only rate at pc3200, so you wouldn't realistically expect to get much more speed out of it, but the ram below is about $30 more and you could push it more on the fsb, I know exactly what you are talking about if you did this the ram you have now will collect dust, not necessarily though, sale it, and use the money to recoupe some of the cost, it is better then having 3or4 sticks of 512 collecting dust somewhere down the road, right?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145594

 

and you should really read this article,http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2560&p=1

it has a lot to do with what I'm trying to convey to you, infact I have decided to take my own advice and upgrade to a 2gb OCZ EB Platinum 2048gb(2x1024gb) dual channel matched kit, I just finished pre-ordering it, comes out on the 25/11 and is based on a new ram called "Infineon", http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?cart_id=5233764_24_20_153_96&Pagecode=SEARCH_ALL&Item_code=MEDD_OCZT_BG_V8&USER_ID=www

[Sleek]

Thanks for all your suggestions. My big problem is the board. I have a MSI K8T Neo and it has only three slots. Right now I have 2 512mb sticks of the same brand but it's a unknown budget brand, I'm afraid. Money was a bit tight at the time. So i was either going to get a 1Gb stick of said unknown brand and just shove it in or, or pay a lot more and get two Corsair matched 1Gb sticks, leaving me with two 512 sticks gathering dust on a shelf some where.

"If" ur mobo supports "Duel Channel" and u got the wonga! I'd go for the 2* 1 Gig's ;):horseback