# Is 12gb of ram too much?



## tollickd (Dec 12, 2009)

Is 12gb of ram too much? I will be using a i7 920 and crossfire 2 x 5850?

or should I stick with 6 gb?


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## mdsx1950 (Dec 12, 2009)

tollickd said:


> Is 12gb of ram too much? I will be using a i7 920 and crossfire 2 x 5850?
> 
> or should I stick with 6 gb?




Go for 12 if you have cash. It will be no use now.. You wont see a difference either. But on the long run.. You wont have to upgrade for another 15 years lol


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## DirectorC (Dec 12, 2009)

You can always decide to make an 8GB RAM drive to play a video game off of!


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 12, 2009)

Get 3 x 2 GiB.  You can add another 3 x 2 GiB when it is actually necessary.  12 GiB is a waste for now unless you are running a heavy 64-bit CAD application.


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## Nick89 (Dec 12, 2009)

> Is 12gb of ram too much?


 yes.


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## tollickd (Dec 12, 2009)

I am thinking to getting 6 gb now and get a SSD hard drive has my primary


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## DirectorC (Dec 12, 2009)

tollickd said:


> I am thinking to getting 6 gb now and get a SSD hard drive has my primary



I would put two of these in RAID0.


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## Wile E (Dec 12, 2009)

As I said in the other thread, grab 6GB of ram, and throw the money you save at a better psu, or more storage, or some other peripheral.


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## Fourstaff (Dec 12, 2009)

Go for 12GB to extend your epeen!

TBH I dont think you will need anything more than 4GB or 6GB for now.


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## SummerDays (Dec 13, 2009)

I wish memory prices would drop, so I could upgrade from 12GB to 24GB.  lol

You can either spend the money on fast 6 GB or go value 12 GB.

Windows runs ideally with about 18 GB apparently (for caching etc).  But yah, most people don't need 12.  My ram usage is listed at 15-18% most of the time.


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## PaulieG (Dec 13, 2009)

Total waste of money. Just get some good clocking low latency ram and put the money you save toward something else more important. You will always have the option later on to add more ram IF it is ever needed. Hell, I'm not sure that I've ever seen my 4GB memory go above 40% except under OCCT testing.


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## Wile E (Dec 13, 2009)

Paulieg said:


> Total waste of money. Just get some good clocking low latency ram and put the money you save toward something else more important. You will always have the option later on to add more ram IF it is ever needed. Hell, I'm not sure that I've ever seen my 4GB memory go above 40% except under OCCT testing.



I've had vlite use 8GB when slipstreaming a service pack into Vista. It was kinda crazy to see. It was legit too, not a bug. Guess it caches most work into memory.

Other than that, never even really maxed 4GB either.


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## lemonadesoda (Dec 13, 2009)

If you are asking the question... then you dont need it.  The few people that really need 12GB know they need it, and get it.  For everyday use, nope. 6GB is enough.

You will get more of an "upgrade" from using the cash to get your OS onto a SSD.


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## SummerDays (Dec 13, 2009)

With the i7 series of processors, each portion of the CPU has access to it's own individual memory, so there may be a performance increase in having a full 4 GB available to each unit.

Ram is never a waste of money, if it were it wouldn't be so damn expensive!  


Think about the new flash memory drives that are coming out.  They only have 250 mB/s access speeds, and then compare that to the speed of DDR3 ram connected directly to an i7 processor.


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## Hunt3r (Dec 13, 2009)

I think you will not be able to use the 12GB think 6Gb is already a good size for your system
Bye


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## Kreij (Dec 13, 2009)

There is such thing as "too much RAM".


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## lemonadesoda (Dec 13, 2009)

There is such thing as "too much RAM" == There is such a thing as "too much sex"

Yes, yes, yes all you philosophers! Fact is, for some of us, it's not true!


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## MK4512 (Dec 13, 2009)

Ask yourself this? Are you running 3 Crysiss' (plural Crysis ) at once? Or some serious autoCAD? If not, no need. Also, make sure that if you do upgrade you have the right OS. I've heard that Windows Home Premium only supports up to 8GB of ram, Professional = 12 and Ultimate = Infinite.


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## MilkyWay (Dec 13, 2009)

12gb is far to much plus what happens when better clocking better latency ram is out?
Its better to have either 4gb or 6gb and a nice latency.

I think Crysis is like sheep, one sheep 2 sheep 3 sheep, 1 Crysis 2 Crysis a set of Crysis lol


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## Kreij (Dec 13, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> There is such thing as "too much RAM" == There is such a thing as "too much sex"



Lemon, my friend, that has to be one of the worst analogies I've seen in a long time. 

Just remember, that your CPU does not get sore from too much RAM, and there is no such thing as a RTD (RAM Transmitted Disease).


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## AsRock (Dec 13, 2009)

Paulieg said:


> Total waste of money. Just get some good clocking low latency ram and put the money you save toward something else more important. You will always have the option later on to add more ram IF it is ever needed. Hell, I'm not sure that I've ever seen my 4GB memory go above 40% except under OCCT testing.



I use all 6GB before i start using the OS as Vista \ Win 7 caches every thing.  Is there a point when it stops caching lol.

So even with 12GB would it take all that too ?.


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## Kreij (Dec 13, 2009)

Vista ultimate on my rig never users more that about 2.5GB of RAM.

That is not the point though.
This is TPU. When have we ever said that something is "enough"????
You're just surfing the web. Is a dual core enough? NO!!! You definetly want an overclocked quad!!
You're game runs at 200fps, is that enough? NO!! OC that GC and get 250FPS!!

This website and all us folks have never really thought about what we need. If we did we wouldn't be frying mobos and GPUs just to get one more MHz out of them.

So ... get more RAM


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## Deleted member 3 (Dec 13, 2009)

Paulieg said:


> Total waste of money. Just get some good clocking low latency ram and put the money you save toward something else more important. You will always have the option later on to add more ram IF it is ever needed. Hell, I'm not sure that I've ever seen my 4GB memory go above 40% except under OCCT testing.



How much difference does low latency RAM make then? I think it's just as noticable as the 12Gb vs 6Gb.


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## SummerDays (Dec 13, 2009)

Latency isn't as much of an issue on DDR3 as it was on DDR2.

Basically the faster the speed of your ram, the more you can overclock your base clock to overclock your cpu.


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## lemonadesoda (Dec 13, 2009)

Kreij said:


> Lemon, my friend, that has to be one of the worst analogies I've seen in a long time.
> 
> Just remember, that your CPU does not get sore from too much RAM, and there is no such thing as a RTD (RAM Transmitted Disease).



Nah, you misunderstood, what I meant was: SAYING "There is such thing as "too much RAM"" *is equivalent to saving* "There is such a thing as "too much sex""

Which* is obviously* nonesense.

RAM Transmitted Disease? Look it up! <here>  he-he

Anyway, 12GB is a good thing. Set up a RAMdisk and a folder mirror service... and mirror www.tpu.com. Then you can have instant lightning speed TPU. What could be better than that, eh?!


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## Kreij (Dec 13, 2009)

Ahhh ... my bad. We need a sarcasm smiley. lol


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## tollickd (Dec 13, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> Nah, you misunderstood, what I meant was: SAYING "There is such thing as "too much RAM"" *is equivalent to saving* "There is such a thing as "too much sex""
> 
> Which* is obviously* nonesense.
> 
> ...



LOL I will be ok I work for a AV company


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## PaulieG (Dec 13, 2009)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> How much difference does low latency RAM make then? I think it's just as noticable as the 12Gb vs 6Gb.



You're right, but 6GB lower latency high speed ram will be significantly cheaper than buying a decent set of 12GB.


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## imperialreign (Dec 13, 2009)

TBH, as has been pointed out, unless you're running some heavy, heavy x64 design apps (CAD, etc.), or performing server/workstation duties . . . 12GB is rather pointless.

8GB is even pushing that bounds of pointless - although comes in handy if you run a handful of heavy x64 apps at the same time (photo editing, audio editing, video editing) . . .

6GB is rather the sweet spot for the average user, IMHO.


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## Melvis (Dec 13, 2009)

Yes it sure is, i have 2GB and i have never ever used the entire lot 1.7max. Unless you are using a server or have Windows Vista installed 3 times over on its self  then there is no point what so ever. 4GB is more then enough IMO, i have not yet seen anyone use over that amount. (6GB for i7 set ups)


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## imperialreign (Dec 13, 2009)

Melvis said:


> Yes it sure is, i have 2GB and i have never ever used the entire lot 1.7max. Unless you are using a server or have Windows Vista installed 3 times over on its self  then there is no point what so ever. 4GB is more then enough IMO, i have not yet seen anyone use over that amount. (6GB for i7 set ups)



It really depends on the user, and what all they do . . .

I run 8GB . . . my XP installation only allocates 4GB of total installed, though.

I run into low-memory problems with XP all the time . . . apps start to slow down, take forever to open large files, processes start getting picky and fight for WIN's attention . . .

No issues with Vista x64, though - due to the above issues I had purchased the extra 4GB, and moved all my apps over, instead of running them in XP.  Have yet to run into any of those problems.  Everything chugs along nice and smooth and fast . . .

But, then again, I'm not the average user, either


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## MilkyWay (Dec 13, 2009)

Kreij said:


> Ahhh ... my bad. We need a sarcasm smiley. lol



oh god that would make me avoid so many arguments over nothing


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