RAM Upgrade

[nevica]

Hello,

I am currently running Windows 7 Home Edition 64 bit. I have 8 GB of RAM installed with the potential of installing another 8GB of RAM.

What are the benefits of this. What will doubling up the RAM from 8GB to 16GB do for me?

Nevica

 

[Nibiru2012]

Your 8GB of RAM is plenty. Adding another 8GB will only put a dent in your wallet with no recognizable increase in performance or speed.

The vast majority of users need no more than 6 GB of RAM. ONLY if you're doing very intensive video rendering / editing, very heavy CAD use or running a server would you need more than 6 GB of RAM.

Don't worry, you're all good with what you have now. Sit back and enjoy Windows 7 Home Premium X64 version.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Hi nevica

There are Desktop Gadgets designed to monitor CPU, and memory usage. If you are curious as to how much memory you are actually using, install a gadget that monitors memory usage. Then you can make a decision on how much memory you need by how much memory you are using.

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

There are Desktop Gadgets designed to monitor CPU, and memory usage. If you are curious as to how much memory you are actually using, install a gadget that monitors memory usage. Then you can make a decision on how much memory you need by how much memory you are using.

Quite right Cliff. I've maxed out/locked my CPU in the past when doing some graphically intense work in PS CS5 and I don't remember my 2gig of memory (at the time) ever getting above 80%. The average was a paltry 30%.

 

[nevica]

Is there an app which can record RAM usage over a long period of time. This is what I really need?

 

[clifford_cooley]

This is the best I can offer. I'm not familiar with any other means of recording memory usage.

Quick Monitor

Gadget can be configured to monitor these parameters:

• CPU Usage
• CPU Core Usage (busiest or cycling) (8 cores)
• CPU Frequency
• Memory Hard & Soft Faults
• Physical & Virtual Memory Usage
• Disk Active Time
• Disk Read & Write Rates (individually or cycling)
• Disk Space Usage
• Network Download & Upload Traffic (individually or cycling)

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

Nice Gadget Cliff.

A quick look can be found under the Performance tab of Windows Task Manager.

See Ed Bott's post for more detailed analysis with Resource Monitor.

And then there's THIS about Perfmon.msc that may help.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Using the Windows 7 Resource Monitor is his best bet.

He can start it up and let it run in the background while doing what ever he's doing and he'll get a better idea of what is really going on with the RAM.