Lots of RAM is useless

[Zeroignite]

According to an article (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264.html) posted over at Tomshardware, having more than 3GB of RAM will not gain any increased performance for a desktop user. They tested 3, 6, and 8 GB setups using synthetic and real-world benchmarks for both gaming and productivity. The verdict? At most, the speed difference was ¾ of 1%.

Makes sense to me. If all the programs currently running use a certain amount of RAM, and that total number is less than 3GB, then there is no reason why doubling the unused memory space would increase performance. One thing's for sure: on my next build, there's no way I'm gonna pay for more than four gigs.

[haha49]

depends on the os... and what programs your useing... for me I went from vista with 2gigs too 4 almost instantly notice a diffrence.. then from 4 to 8 gigs boot time shutdown is alot faster tabeing in and out of games loads faster.. loading games seems to bealot faster as well Im frist one loaded into games but gameplay dont see much just can multiy task alot more..:banana:


For most people with vista 64bit just go 4 gigs.. if you want faster load boot and shutdown time then go 8 gigs if you doing VM then you might want the 8 gigs of ram.. I manged to open 120 web browsers at once with 7 tabs per browser all runing at the same time in window mode while playing music.. it started to slow after I hit 90x7 tabs per window..

[crenn]

I can easily fill 60% of my 6GB of RAM, and that's without trying. For speed, more RAM isn't necessarily going to be better but it depends on what you use your computer for.

[Oneslowz28]

I easily max out 4gb while editing photos. Having 200+ photos open in photoshop will do that. Or working in in Illustrator and having 50 pages worth of wedding album files @ 900 ppi sized at 11x14" or 16x20" will also do it.

[TheGreatSatan]

Did they just copy the review from MaxPC? That looks like the same one!

I'll upgrade to 16GB when it's cheap enough mearly for bragging rights

[haha49]

Did they just copy the review from MaxPC? That looks like the same one!

I'll upgrade to 16GB when it's cheap enough mearly for bragging rights

1 computer I have has 128gigs of ram in it... 2 quad core cpus in it as well... the mb was the most expensive part.. everything else was cheap..

does it ever use all the ram not even close.. but why did I do it was 10 bucks a 2gig stick so I was like screw it why not.. its a sever though... and it runs a few games severs at the same time and I sent it to a sever farm so I get a faster conectiong and I just remote into it...

[x88x]

I'm surprised at you TomsHardware, I thought you knew better *shakes head*. You don't really see any big benefits from having massive amounts of RAM unless you're either running lots of programs all at the same time or dealing with lots of data that gets cached in RAM...or if you're running VMs... Though I know when I upgraded from 4GB to 8GB, I actually got a noticeable performance boost in 'normal' (for me) day-to-day use. GTA4 doesn't hang anymore, things take less time to load, Vista boots faster, and I can run multiple VMs and run a resource intensive game at the same time (granted, my old HDDs start complaining loudly at that point, but that's another matter :p ).

I'm also a little confused why they turned on ReadyBoost in their tests, considering that it's purpose is basically to take the load off the RAM, not use it more.. *shrugs*

Another cool thing you can do with ridiculous amounts of RAM; make a RAMdisk and throw your browser cache/etc on there :D (I'm gonna be trying that once I get my SSDs installed)

[TheGreatSatan]

.. its a sever though.....

I don't consider a server a PC

[haha49]

I'm surprised at you TomsHardware, I thought you knew better *shakes head*. You don't really see any big benefits from having massive amounts of RAM unless you're either running lots of programs all at the same time or dealing with lots of data that gets cached in RAM...or if you're running VMs... Though I know when I upgraded from 4GB to 8GB, I actually got a noticeable performance boost in 'normal' (for me) day-to-day use. GTA4 doesn't hang anymore, things take less time to load, Vista boots faster, and I can run multiple VMs and run a resource intensive game at the same time (granted, my old HDDs start complaining loudly at that point, but that's another matter :p ).

I'm also a little confused why they turned on ReadyBoost in their tests, considering that it's purpose is basically to take the load off the RAM, not use it more.. *shrugs*

Another cool thing you can do with ridiculous amounts of RAM; make a RAMdisk and throw your browser cache/etc on there :D (I'm gonna be trying that once I get my SSDs installed)


Noticed the same exact thing.. waiting for bigger ssd befor I get one.. 32 gigs for 300 not appealing..

[haha49]

I don't consider a server a PC

It has the exact same parts its even in a desktop case... its the same exact thing... only diffrence its got power and not so great video only 8x pci-epress slot.. instead of 16...

[w0lv3r1n3]

For me there was a huge difference in playing games
like Call Of Duty 4. At 2 Gigs, ( Which is well above the recommended )
i was getting hitches and "Lag" at times. I check my LCD to see
my memory available, and it was like 5% available. This was with a
finely tuned system.
Jump ahead, i go to 4 Gigs and the hitches and "lag" was gone.
Windows, regardless of flavor with try to use as much memory
as you throw at it. Vista 64-Bit to me seems to utilize the ram
much better that any other so far. ( I have used every flavor
since "Windows For Workgroups 3.11 ( On Floppys )" )

So now I have Vista 64, SLI 8800's and 8 Gigs of Ram. Future Protection?
Damned right.
Sometimes, people get too into the "Tests" and don't realize that
real world is your real world. Mine is just fine now with my setup.

[NightrainSrt4]

It has the exact same parts its even in a desktop case... its the same exact thing... only diffrence its got power and not so great video only 8x pci-epress slot.. instead of 16...

It is still a server class board. Dual cpu boards are generally server class boards, and I've yet to see any consumer based board that can support 128GB ram.

And I really don't mean to be rude but I would like to see this board you have. Most boards you can buy and shove into a standard pc case would have to be EATX to 128GB, and even then they would have to have 8GB Dimms. What EATX board has 64 DIMM slots? Looking at several server class EATX boards and they physically could not fit 64 dimms on the board, and even if they could there would be no room for any other component. And you would have to have 64 slots as you said you used 2GB dimms because they are cheap.

Please post pictures of this board with 64 Dimm slots in a standard PC case. I could be very very wrong, but I really call BS on this one. There is really no need to BS on this forum. We could care less in general if you were rocking a fully loaded i7 phase changed 6xsli +physics gpu rig or an old P3 128MB ram HP.

Edit: Perhaps you fully loaded the 16 dimm slots and thought you had the max supported of 128, but really only have 32 (16 slots x 2GB)?

[nevermind1534]

its a sever though... and it runs a few games severs at the same time and I sent it to a sever farm so I get a faster conectiong and I just remote into it...

He said it's a server... I think

[NightrainSrt4]

But it is in a standard atx case, which means atx, or eatx generally. Eatx tops out at 16 dimm slots from what I have seen. Which is why I was confused.

[x88x]

Noticed the same exact thing.. waiting for bigger ssd befor I get one.. 32 gigs for 300 not appealing..

I got my two 60GB OCZ Vertex recently for $220 each. Yes, still very expensive, but a lot less than they were.


But it is in a standard atx case, which means atx, or eatx generally. Eatx tops out at 16 dimm slots from what I have seen. Which is why I was confused.

I'm also curious about this. I know I have seen rackmount servers with at least 64 dimm slots, and I have also seen rackmount cases that were designed to be able to be taken out of the rack, turned sideways, and used as a tower. I'm wondering if something like that might be the case? Also, I would think that if I were running a server farm and allowed people to provide their own hardware, it would make more sense to me to only accept rackmount systems. Idk, just my two cents.

[haha49]

It is still a server class board. Dual cpu boards are generally server class boards, and I've yet to see any consumer based board that can support 128GB ram.

And I really don't mean to be rude but I would like to see this board you have. Most boards you can buy and shove into a standard pc case would have to be EATX to 128GB, and even then they would have to have 8GB Dimms. What EATX board has 64 DIMM slots? Looking at several server class EATX boards and they physically could not fit 64 dimms on the board, and even if they could there would be no room for any other component. And you would have to have 64 slots as you said you used 2GB dimms because they are cheap.

Please post pictures of this board with 64 Dimm slots in a standard PC case. I could be very very wrong, but I really call BS on this one. There is really no need to BS on this forum. We could care less in general if you were rocking a fully loaded i7 phase changed 6xsli +physics gpu rig or an old P3 128MB ram HP.

Edit: Perhaps you fully loaded the 16 dimm slots and thought you had the max supported of 128, but really only have 32 (16 slots x 2GB)?

its a atx mb and the ram slots are everywere... its a tad bit longer on the bottom but fits an atx case.. the slots are 2 cpus and ram going from 1 side of the bord to the other.. between the cpus everything.. so many dam slots.. Its a sever based board that fits in an atx case its part of the never sever boards because some people want power for doing 3d ect just the video slot is 16x instead of 32

[NightrainSrt4]

I don't know. I wasn't feeling too well earlier so hopefully my post wasn't too left field/inappropriate. Just was curious as to what the hardware actually was, as nothing I have seen would go in a standard pc case, use standard pc components, and yet have allocations for 128GB by using 2GB dimms (64 slots).

I've yet to see a standard rackmount (4u) or similar standard platform that could be stated as a regular case have 64 dimm slots. Even HP's $8k-$22 DL500 G5's only have 16 dimm slots. And at that point you aren't talking about regular pc hardware.

It's probably a dual-cpu server board with 16 dimm slots, which would allow up to 128GB of ram with 8GB dimms, but with 2GB ram it would only be 32GB. Probably a mistake in his statement or understanding by stating 128GB, so ehh.

Either way, its still a lot of ram. Ramdisk ftw.

EDIT: Just saw your post, so its 16 dimm slots at most. So you've got 32GB ram. Still a crapload. But not 128GB ram with that config. Here you can see a board that probably is similar to yours. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?Image=13-182-108-08.jpg%2c13-182-108-02.jpg%2c13-182-108-03.jpg%2c13-182-108-04.jpg%2c13-182-108-05.jpg%2c13-182-108-06.jpg%2c13-182-108-07.jpg&S7ImageFlag=0&WaterMark=1&Item=N82E16813182108R&Depa=99&Description=SUPERMICRO%20MBD-H8DME-2-O%20Extended%20ATX%20Server%20Motherboard) Its EATX, a bit bigger than atx and will fit in big desktop cases. But theres no way, as you can see, that 64 dimm slots would physically fit. There would be no room for cpu's, or expansion slots.

[haha49]

I don't know. I wasn't feeling too well earlier so hopefully my post wasn't too left field/inappropriate. Just was curious as to what the hardware actually was, as nothing I have seen would go in a standard pc case, use standard pc components, and yet have allocations for 128GB by using 2GB dimms (64 slots).

I've yet to see a standard rackmount (4u) or similar standard platform that could be stated as a regular case have 64 dimm slots. Even HP's $8k-$22 DL500 G5's only have 16 dimm slots. And at that point you aren't talking about regular pc hardware.

It's probably a dual-cpu server board with 16 dimm slots, which would allow up to 128GB of ram with 8GB dimms, but with 2GB ram it would only be 32GB. Probably a mistake in his statement or understanding by stating 128GB, so ehh.

Either way, its still a lot of ram. Ramdisk ftw.

EDIT: Just saw your post, so its 16 dimm slots at most. So you've got 32GB ram. Still a crapload. But not 128GB ram with that config. Here you can see a board that probably is similar to yours. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?Image=13-182-108-08.jpg%2c13-182-108-02.jpg%2c13-182-108-03.jpg%2c13-182-108-04.jpg%2c13-182-108-05.jpg%2c13-182-108-06.jpg%2c13-182-108-07.jpg&S7ImageFlag=0&WaterMark=1&Item=N82E16813182108R&Depa=99&Description=SUPERMICRO%20MBD-H8DME-2-O%20Extended%20ATX%20Server%20Motherboard) Its EATX, a bit bigger than atx and will fit in big desktop cases. But theres no way, as you can see, that 64 dimm slots would physically fit. There would be no room for cpu's, or expansion slots.

about 80 percent of the board is ram slots.. has 1 pci 1 pci epress and thats about it.. sata conections but thats it.. the whole mb is basicly ram slots it only supports ddr2 2gig sticks.. alot of slots and have to put a small heatsink on or all the ram wouldnt fit

[x88x]

@haha49 (dropping the quotes to not waste space)

Cool, a friend of mine is actually looking for a board like that, do you know who makes it?

@NightrainSrt4 (missed that post first time I read it)

I know at least HP at least used to make servers that could take stupid numbers of RAM sticks. I have a server at work that can take 64 sticks (iirc), but unfortunately it's an old system, and all that RAM is SDRAM... I'll try and remember to grab the model number tomorrow and see if they still make a similar thing. The RAM is in special modules though, so not really what haha's talking about.

[Drum Thumper]

about 80 percent of the board is ram slots.. has 1 pci 1 pci epress and thats about it.. sata conections but thats it.. the whole mb is basicly ram slots it only supports ddr2 2gig sticks.. alot of slots and have to put a small heatsink on or all the ram wouldnt fit

Link to the mobo since there are no pics? I'm about to call BS on this as well.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I am really surprised that Tom's Hardware would even make this claim. Yeah for sure a ton of RAM wouldn't make much difference because you would very very rarely be able to fill it but from my experience running Vista 64bit there is a huge difference between 2GB, 4GB and 6GB of RAM, and that;s even before you factor in single or duel channel orientations.

[NightrainSrt4]

They should have just called it "Do You Really Need More than 6 GB of Ram When You know You Aren't Going to Use much at all?".

None of their tests used more, or much more, than their 3GB baseline. We all know having a bunch of ram go unused isn't going to do a whole lot. If you're going to use 12GB of ram then get it, and it will be a huge difference than 3GB. If you're only going to use 1.5GB total, ya it's a waste.

Yup, stressing 12GB of ram with system use and a 700MB CD is going to show a whole lot of improvement over a 3GB system, yup, :rolleyes:. And gaming benchmarks where the full game install isn't even all that large, and is designed not to cache things that aren't needed yet into ram anyway, yup that is going to show a whole lot. Might as well just tested Minesweeper's performance.

[x88x]

Turns out HP does still make a similar beast. The DL7xx line appears to be what I was thinking of: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/en/WF06a/15351-15351-3328412-241644-3328423-3716072.html
64 DIMM slots, with a max of 512GB of RAM and 8 quad-core Opterons
Now if only I had $17k to drop on a PC......or ~$90k for the configuration I'd want....

Still not like what haha's describing though.

[Airbozo]

Did they just copy the review from MaxPC? That looks like the same one!

I'll upgrade to 16GB when it's cheap enough mearly for bragging rights

Beat ya...

I have a new system (new to me anyway) running 2x xeon 5160's, 1 Quadro 4600 and 16 gb of ecc buffered memory. The advantage? Autodesk will rotate a complex model in almost real time.

The disadvantage? The damn system is really noisy after putting in the extra 8gb. With 8gb I could barely hear it.

It's all packed nicely in a Dell 690...

[The boy 4rm oz]

The disadvantage? The damn system is really noisy after putting in the extra 8gb. With 8gb I could barely hear it.


Now you need to water cool ;) lol.

[x88x]

The disadvantage? The damn system is really noisy after putting in the extra 8gb. With 8gb I could barely hear it.

:? Adding RAM made it louder?? How'd that happen?

Sweet system, btw.

[Airbozo]

:? Adding RAM made it louder?? How'd that happen?

Sweet system, btw.

The memory is on riser cards and when the system senses a certain amount of memory, it automagically ups the fan speed to compensate even if there is no increase in temperature. Since this model originally shipped with riser cards for the memory, the cooling for the memory is setup only for those riser cards. If I just put the memory on the mobo, it gets really hot and the cooling fans don't do much good.

It's a shame I won't be pushing this system to it's limits. It really is a nice rig. I got it for a steal and replaced my aging desktop system. Funny thing is, it gets better 3DMark scores than my gaming rig... That quadro 4600 is really close in performance to my 8800gts 640.

[NightrainSrt4]

Turns out HP does still make a similar beast.

Ya, I already knew of big servers with ginormous amounts of slots. That server is 7U, so a really big mofo. To fit in the regular rack space I bet those memory slots would have to be on a riser board, as I mentioned the physical area on the board wouldn't be large enough to support anything else if all slots were on the surface. As you said, that is still a far cry from standard components in a standard case.

Bozo: That sounds like a killer rig. If only those server boards wouldn't do things you don't want them to. I changed out a board from a 1U with loud as hell 40mm fans to see how it would do in a custom case with 120mm's. Turns out it freaks if those 40's aren't installed, and even with the 120's still runs the 40's blazing. Can't win with some boards lol.

[x88x]

ahh, hardware presets. I know they're just trying to help, but they can be so annoying :D

@NightrainSrt4: If the new DL7xx's are like the old one I've seen, the RAM is actually in (theoretically) hot-swap modules of probably about 8 DIMM's each. I believe the CPU's are housed in similar modules too. It's designed to (with the right software) enable you to replace just about any hardware without shutting the system down. Pretty cool system, but sooo expensive :p

[DaJe]

I know I sure could use more RAM for some of the stuff I do. My laptop has 4GB, and I constantly bring down my free hard drive space with memory dumps while working on things. My desktop seems to handle it all pretty well though. But yeah, for certain things, RAM isn't going to matter as much.