Which is Better?

[Mightymorff]

Is it better to have:
8Gb RAM @ 667MHz or
4Gb RAM @ 1066MHz
:confused::confused::confused:

[NeverGive7]

This is one of those questions that will vary person to person but Id rather have 4gb of 1066mhz.

[Floyd]

Personally im more about quantity over speed.

[ballz0r]

This is one of those questions that will vary person to person but Id rather have 4gb of 1066mhz.

really depends on what your using the rig for... general gaming id agree with you... speed over qty

[Mightymorff]

Thanks for the quick replies,

Also, I notice on my CPU/Memory desktop gadget the ram usage is only at 20% and doesn't really go above 30-40%. does this mean that the rest (maybe 4Gb) is just sitting there wasted? (unused, not stoned)

p.s. I am using a 64bit operating system so that I can address the full amount of ram, not the 3Gb that the 32bit OS says I can.

[NeverGive7]

really depends on what your using the rig for... general gaming id agree with you... speed over qty

I had 4gbs of 1066mhz up until a few days ago and I used it for many things without a problem. That includes editing avchd video in adobe premiere pro with realtime preview, editing raw images in adobe lightroom 3, as well as gaming. The one time I have found that it lags is using adobe after effects, I cannot get realtime playback in it, but I couldn't either with a i7 920 and 6gbs of 1600 mhz.

[0xygenthief]

Not necessarily. Some games take a large chunk of Ram when the game starts up. So normal day to day usage most of the ram will be wasted, yes. But I personally would rather have the extra RAM sitting there in case I need it. For Win7 I find that 6GB is the perfect amount of RAM. My 875 running on a H55 mobo has 4GB and it hits the hard drive a little too much for my tastes. But with 6GB on my main gaming rig I get very few hits on the pagefile.

[0xygenthief]

I had 4gbs of 1066mhz up until a few days ago and I used it for many things without a problem. That includes editing avchd video in adobe premiere pro with realtime preview, editing raw images in adobe lightroom 3, as well as gaming. The one time I have found that it lags is using adobe after effects, I cannot get realtime playback in it, but I couldn't either with a i7 920 and 6gbs of 1600 mhz.

Have you tried setting the "scratch disk" onto a separate hard drive. It may not be RAM lag, it could be HD IO lag.

[Floyd]

As others said it depends on what you use so far and what you do.
I have one game that upwards upwards of 90% of my ram with 4 gig.

[Mightymorff]

I've been thinking!

4Gb OCZ Reaper 400MHz, or 533MHz with overclock
4Gb generic DDR2 400MHz

but why am I only getting 667MHz, does the system set them back to the lowest common denominator (or highest, whatever way you look at it).
and what would be the likely outcome if I tried to set them to 400MHz, I'm a little reluctant to "suck it and see"

[Mightymorff]

As others said it depends on what you use so far and what you do.
I have one game that upwards upwards of 90% of my ram with 4 gig.

it's a gaming rig mainly.

[Floyd]

4Gb OCZ Reaper 400MHz, or 533MHz with overclock
4Gb generic DDR2 400MHz

but why am I only getting 667MHz, does the system set them back to the lowest common denominator (or highest, whatever way you look at it).
and what would be the likely outcome if I tried to set them to 400MHz, I'm a little reluctant to "suck it and see"

What?!
Are you looking for DDR2 ram?
Just get some 800MHz and call it a day.
If you mismatch ram (and it works) it will downclock to the lowest rams speed.

[ablatman]

Is it better to have:
8Gb RAM @ 667MHz or
4Gb RAM @ 1066MHz
:confused::confused::confused:

It really depends on a lot of things, including latencies.

From what I've heard of 775 crap, Intel's chipsets like low-latency RAM at slow-medium speeds, while Nvidia's shit chipsets liked medium-high latency RAM at fucking bindblistering speeds.

It also depends on what you're utilizing it for....



Personally, I find that for my day-to-day usage that 6GB isn't enough -- being that I'm a tabwhore and run Firefox and Chrome 24/7 (Chrome handles Flash a LOT better than Firefox, but Firefox offers me a better browsing experience).... When I was only using Firefox, 6GB was about the right amount. ---- Keep in mind that I rarely close down my browsers when I do other stuff, and that my windows overhead with both browsers, eleet, and VLC running is in the 2.5-5+ GB range depending on number of open tabs....


Honestly, I'd recommend having AT LEAST 4GB of total RAM, and if you're on DDR2, there's NO sense in buying new RAM that's less than 667, and usually 800MHz, and that's on a purely price-based comparison for cheapish RAM from reputable companies -- might not be the stuff sold as the uberfastshit, but it's still OK RAM.

[xmanrigger]

Personally im more about quantity over speed.

Agreed. 9 times out of 10, you will see the biggest performance boost out of the amount not the speed. And for most people, as 0xygenthief stated, 6GB seems to be a good amount for Win7. Of course, if you do a lot of intensive video/photo editing, 12GB+ would be a good number.

[ablatman]

Agreed. 9 times out of 10, you will see the biggest performance boost out of the amount not the speed...

Up to a point, but that's only because with less RAM than that, the OS hits a pagefile something fierce, and because the HDD is SOOOOO much slower than even the slowest of RAM, it'll speed up their computer...

[Mightymorff]

I've decided to use 4Gb @ 1066MHz for a while as I only use it for gaming and browsing,
the memory monitor is still only showing 30% which I can live with.