As the title says.

This is assuming a decent core and a 1gig video card as well on a 64-bit OS. I remember a time when 2 gigs of DDR was a "sweet spot," but how does that translate to today's hardware and systems? Is more better? If so, how much? 6gigs? 8gigs? 12?

4 Gigs is plently for now (gaming wise that is). But if you would like to provide a bit of "future proofing" to your system and the fact that memory is so cheap these days (unless your on a really tight budget) I would consider going more than 4.

you can also create a RAMDrive for games that stream a lot of data from your HDD (Arma2, Fallout3, GTA4, etc.) which can give you a huge performance boost. It will basically pre-load the info into RAM and use it like a regular harddrive. I plan on getting another 4GB just for that if I can get enough funds saved up

More than four became popular with the i7 CPU since it supports tri-channel memory.

Exactly, but now Intel has returned to dual channel with its Lynnfield i7 and i5 processors, so is 4 or 8 the new norm for enthusiast desktops?

Come on guys...support the PC industry ....buy at least 6 gigs and always buy at least 2 of the best video cards ....3 better.

Hmmm... how do I create a RAMDrive? Is having lotsa memory enough, or do I have to flick some switches?

OK, I'm listening. If I buy 3 video cards, can I get a MOBO that supports all three?

Ripcord

lol...they make mobo's that support four!
The better question is what PSU to get that's will support everything and still be reliable lol

honestly unless you want to run the newest games @ max FPS (which really doesn't matter over 60FPS) with all the max visual settings. Having more then 4-6GB RAM and or more then 1-2 higher/highest end cards isn't worth the money.

If you are into playing older sim games you can get by easily with a 8800/9800 series Nvidia card or 47XX series ATI card.

Yes there are boards out there that support 8+ GB of RAM, usually triple set RAM, as well as up to 4 VGAs and even then those VGAs could be dual GPU cards however. Is it really really worth it? I cant' tell you not to spend your money, however like I said above, would it be worth the money?

Oh and something often over looked with multi VGA/GPU systems is the PSU being inadequate and often will cause problems with the system usually mistaken for a bad card, when if fact the card(s) fine, just not enough power to the system over all.

Having more then 2-4GB of system RAM can give you an increase in your FPS and over all quality of visual experience the amount of increase is different with each system do to so many variables. More then 4 (3.75GB) RAM comes into its own if you are running a 64bit OS, if you are still on 32bit, it doesn't hurt but doesn't help that much depending on how much system resources your OS is using already and for the average home PC user that isn't aware of things like that, their OS is easily using 40-60% of their total system RAM.

I run two systems (quad core duos with 4GB each) I can play even CODMW2 with medium graphics on a 8800 Ultra and get 40-60FPS, not to mention other older SIMs.

So yes I would suggesting getting up to 4GB as it wouldn't hurt and might give the OP quite a boost in performance. Though if your running @ 60+% system RAM usage, you might need to go higher or learn to tweak your OS to use less.

If one has a I7 system with 6GB of RAM and say a single GTX295 or ATI 5XXX card, then that should be able to handle all but the most recent games on decent of not close to max Visual performance. As for getting a second card = SLI imo its a matter of bragging rights and possibly getting that extra 5-10 FPS.

Another thing to consider, is getting an SSD, though they are still new to the market and can be quite a chunk of change, though they are faster then mechanical HDDs.

@ phelan:
Like I said, assume a 64-bit OS. I see you recommend 4gigs, but I'm asking why would I want more than that?

And if I would want more, how much is reasonable before things go overkill?

I'm seeing two new builds with 6gig RAM. Is that the sweet spot (anything more is wasted or not used), or just a bit of future-proofing (a bit is wasted but is "on stand-by" for future games/progams)?

I think 4GB is probably the sweet spot right now, but i7 systems use triple-channel memory, which for a high-end system implies 6GB of RAM. The additional 2GB costs less than $50.

I have 8GB on my current system (below).

I'm building a Home Theater PC.

Rather than buy new for it, I'm buying new for me -- CPU and Motherboard

My wife gets the my current CPU and motherboard.

The HTPC gets my wife's CPU, motherboard, memory.

I'm splitting my 8GB of DDR2 -- 4GB for me, 4GB for my wife.

I'm willing to do that for two reasons, I don't believe the extra 4GB adds anything. And, I think the memory runs faster using only two sticks (2x2GB) because I can probably use T1 timings. With 8GB, only T2 works (on AMD). On AMD stuff, minimizing the timings is important -- however, the memory speed is much less important -- so I'm sticking with DDR2 for now running at T1 (hopefully).

Putt'n my money where my mouth often is when I post here (I shoot for best "visible" performance/price overall)

I run 8gb in my system, never seem to use much over 3gb running win7 64bit

4GB is the sweet spot, but on Triple Channel i7 you either have 3 or 6, so that's why you are seeing six.

Simple reasoning: Most games are still 32bit, thus can not use more than 2GB RAM. Some are coded to support the "LargeAdressAware" function which allows them to use 3GB. A clean basic windows install without an unnecessary heap of tray icons and background programs (such as a good gaming setup should be) will never use more than 1GB RAM itself. So 4GB is the absolute max you might need.

Of course, some functions like "RAMDrive" would want more RAM, also there are 64bit Versions of Productivity Apps (Photoshop, Premiere, 3d rendering stuff) which can and will use more than 3GB RAM for a single program, so for that kind of work 8GB is sweeter. But this is not normal gaming rig stuff.

On the contrary, some games have bugs with 8GB RAM, best known with Arma2, for example.

The advantage of 64bit, even with 4GB RAM, is that you are not restricted to the 3.5 of 32bit AND as far as I know the GFX RAM also counted against the limit in 32bit systems. So 1GB GFX RAM and 4GB System RAM would mean only 2.5 GB System ram actually usable. With x64 you get all 5.

I can offer a bit of historical perspective:

My current (32 bit) PC is 4 years old now but it was top notch with 2 GB RAM when I built it. So as already cited "future proofing" is a viable consideration, to a degree (keeping in mind that "all glory is fleeting"). At this point in technology I would opt for a 4 GB build.

I also installed an SLI-cable gfx card way back when, but never did up it to full SLI, so would say that's a lower priority.

The pace of technology is even more rapid now then it was a short 4 years ago, so don't break the bank. Build a capable system now with perhaps just a bit more horsepower than you need and that's about the best you can do from a cost effective "future proofing" perspective.

Sales rep at Digital Storm could've sold me a SSD for the system they are building for me, but instead he told me the truth. He said I should wait to go with SSD. First, because they are currently extremely overpriced for the amount of storage; second, because they are not yet at the level of reliabiity as mechanical drives due to their new technology; third, because they don't speed up games (to the degree the human eye can detect) once you are actually playing them--they only noticeably speed up boot times. Since this is to be a pure gaming machine for me, he said he'd gladly take my money if I wanted one but it's a waste of money for my purposes.

Just telling you what sales told me. Had he been less honest and told me something different, I would've bought one at great cost. I also asked about water cooling and dual vid cards. He said water cooling is almost never necessary, that 99 out of 100 people who buy it don't need it. They WANT it because they think it's cool or whatever, or just want bragging rights with their buddies. They are glad to sell it to whoever wants it. Some people go all the way and have water cooling into their vid cards, not just the CPU. He said water cooling a vid card was totally unnecessary but he'd gladly sell it to me if I want it. He said 1000 watt+ power supplies are only needed if you're loading up your system with at least two high end vid cards in SLI or Crossfire. Otherwise, he said, 750 was more than enough to run everything with power left over.

I like this company (DS) more and more for their honesty.

If you really want a true, "scorch your eyebrows when viewing" gamer, go with XP64, 24-32GB of ram,
GTX 295 in SLI and dump ALL the game program into a V.R.D.(Virtual Ram Drive). LOTS of moola...the last time I looked, a "decent" 8GB module was going for +/- $600.

I have XP64, 8GB of G.Skill PC6400 @ 4-3-4-9 2T with a voltage bump and sometimes dump up to 4GB of program into a V.R.D. and it will literally fly. No swap or prefetch; however, it can be a real problem getting everything "synched". The V.R.D software is also a major consideration, especially if you want to save what you've run and what OS you will run it on. Depending upon the amount of memory your v_card has, 4GB of board ram would be the minimum. V.R.D just isn't worth the trouble on a 32 bit OS.

There are many free V.R.D. apps out; try one and experiment.

I would imagine that W7 would be even better, but I'm not up on any of the software working with W7. Anyway, I won't be migrating to W7 until after the first service pack is released.

Another way to increase gaming/application performance is to locate .exe and .dll files as close to the MFT as possible. That will cut down seek and prefetch times: Ultimate Defrag 2008 is excellent and no, "just" defragging a hard drive won't max out seek performance.

Depending where on the hd the software you want the most from is, you could also relocate the swap file to the middle of the platter, posibbly closer to said software.

The "last" consideration to think about is the software cpu intensive, gpu or both.

Just my 2 cents worth: and as always, your mileage may very.

plug_nickel (Al)

Well, he's not entirely right. "Overpriced" is in the eye of the beerholder. It's like saying a HD5870 is overpriced compared to a 9600GT - yes, the top performance costs top coin.

Reliability is a red hering in his argument, they are much less likely to fail than a mechanical drive, and if Patriot is willing to give me 10 years warranty, I want to see where he can get that on a classical HD.

It's true that they are not speeding up games, but they speed up the whole experience of sitting in front of the computer.

Like I said, you don't want to chop the GFX or CPU just so you can afford an SSD, but if you can afford the CPU and GFX you want, AND have money left, I'd rather spend it on a SSD than on a second card for SLI/CF or on water cooling.

Amen. SSD's will be the future for storage. No "mechanics" and no heat. It's kinda like buying the very first design model of a new car though; you just don't know what the overall reliability is and the cost just isn't there yet.

What surprises me is that the product hasn't been driven by the laptop mfgs. Heat and space is a MAJOR issue in those cramped quarters.

It has. Apple's MacBook Air and the Lenovo T3000 competitior were the first consumer/business computers to come with SSD.

Problem is that laptop sales are steadily rising for private users as well, with a trend to the laptop as "only computer" and these private customers want enough HD space for their movies and digital pictures.

Until SSDs drop in price, they are just not going to go mainstream. With 1Tb hard drives going for around 80 bucks, SSDs just can't compete. I suspect greed has a lot to do with it.

Well, I guess the SSD is just for the OS and games and the like, but 1TB HDDs will be for storage of movies, pictures, and what-not.

Unless you have more RAM than the OS can make use of then setting up a VRD is counter productive.

XP32 can access 3.5 +/- of 4GB installed

XP64 can access 128Gb.

I haven't looked into V64 or W7_64.

The primary limiting factors to a "good" VRD are OS and ram support on the board. With something like SuperSpeeds Ramdisk, which I use, the OS is not much of a problem. XP32 "will" have access to all 4GB+ of ram by using RD as an interface. So you can eak-out all of the unmanaged ram for use.

With XP64 its even better with more managed ram support, up to 128GB. The RD software is, in this case, the VRD "drive" and ALL of a program and v-card memory is accessed directly in ram, not between the ram and...whatever.

The major limiting factor to a real killer VRD is board support of ram, the availabe size and type of single ram modules and there cost.

ECS has a couple of boards that support 32GB of ram. ECS is not known for high quality or features, IMO, but with with my X6800 proc, I run at 3.45 on air with multiplier only and FSB at stock 1067, so ECS would not be a problem to use. The caps on the board are not great; they'd have to be replaced. The cost of a "cheap" 8GB module is around +/- $600 and upwards of a $1000 for one with really good specs. So that investment is VERY expensive, at least for me.

The ability to "dump" a complete 20-25GB program into a VRD and run it with full v-card memory access is very appealing. I've done it with up to 4GB program and the performance and efficiency is really something.

I hope DDR2 ram pricing is driven WAY DOWN when DDR3 really takes off. If it does, I'll probably be running an ECS with 32GB and W7Pro in the future, IF DDR2 decent modules are still avialable.

I'll still be running Autocad, Solidworks and other programs off of my hd direct; but VRD will be for flight sims. They'll really "fly" then.

plug_nickel (Al)

Unlikely, if anything (as is happening now), the cost of DDR2 will just continue to rise since it is not being produced in the same quantities any more because fabs are turning to DDR3... less supply = higher cost.

Oh man, a "realist".

Bah, humbug!...lol

Yeah, I know economics.

Running a fully accessible 4Gb VRD right now is just freaking awesome though. The ability to be able to "drop" FS9, FSX, BHnH, any GR version, Open Falcon, FF5, or several racing sims and run them in ram is worth the wait and see.

I may be 58-1/2 and a Constitutional Conservative, but I still believe in Santa and he uses a RayNav 300 GPS system in his sled: I saw it!

plug_nickel (Al)

I have 8 GB in my system. My decision was based on price. I paid less then $100.00 after rebates for the 8 GB

The size of ram I'm talking about are 4GB or 8Gb SINGLE modules. Most of the boards I've found support six slots so 4 x 6 = 24GB or 8 x 6 = 48GB.

The cost lies with size of the module and its specs. Some single 8GB modules, DDR2-PC6400, 4-4-4-12, low voltage apprx 1.6-1.8 volts run $1000-$1600 each. That's a lot of money in anyone's book.

That single module can buy you a decent computer already.

I say skip it and stick to 6-8 gigs. Then again, if you got a couple grand burning a hole in your pocket, that's a good place to stick it.