Author Topic: How much RAM does your computer have?  (Read 39149 times)

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Offline !Donovan

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How much RAM does your computer have?
« on: April 22, 2013, 10:30:53 PM »
I have invested a good amount of money into a new 15.6'' laptop that has some of the best specs out there for a relatively low price. It has everything that I would want from a computer. With the jump from 1gb ram to 16gb ram and a quad-core processor, I'd assume that the speed would be drastically improved and there wouldn't be random lag spikes.

With that being said, I want to ensure that 16gb will be more than enough for the various programs that I will be running in the background. I'm not a fan of 1gb ram, with it lagging while nothing is running, so I would like to know how fast other computers are before I buy the new one. After all, the purpose of me buying this laptop is to free myself from the "laggy experience", no?

How much ram does your computer have, what do you use it for, and how fast is it?
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Offline DavidR

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2013, 10:42:31 PM »
Unless you are going to be gaming or doing video editing or other memory intensive applications then most people will get by without issue on 8GB RAM. Obviously your OS is also a determining factor as you know it has to be 64bit to utilise more than 4gb and what it is a minimum requirement for that as that would reduce the available RAM for other tasks.

Though if the deal is good (difference between 8 & 16 isn't great) on 16GB of RAM why not. Most laptops have only two RAM slots if you went with 8GB then to get more you would probably end up replacing the old RAM, not a great economic deal.
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Offline bob3160

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2013, 10:44:11 PM »
Specs in my signature.
Wish mine was an I7 and wouldn't mind if it had 8 gig.
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Offline !Donovan

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2013, 11:06:34 PM »
I have already decided on 16gb over 8gb. I will be running multiple VMs so the extra ram is needed.

As for this computer, it runs on Vista (32bit). The new one ships with Windows 8 (64bit) and is a gaming laptop that was recommended to me by a friend of mine that owns one.

I am wondering how different users with different amounts of memory fare with their computers so I can get an understanding of how many things one can run without lag.
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Offline bob3160

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2013, 11:14:13 PM »
On my system, when I'm stressing it, I usually have Chrome open with 5 or 6 tabs,
Have just completed and edited a video with Screencast-O-Matic am in the process of
uploading it to YouTube or Google Drive (Screencast) is still open and doing the upload) and am busy back on the forum while waiting for the upload to finish.
At that point, the extra ram and the faster OS would be nice even if what I currently have is a lot faster than the old clunker.
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Offline !Donovan

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2013, 11:23:16 PM »
Video manipulation usually takes more ram than most programs, so I can see how it'd stress the computer.

Chrome is actually faster than Firefox on this computer and does not lag as frequent as Firefox (which always lags, no matter how many tabs I have). I can run about 20 tabs without lag on Chrome, but that's because I don't usually multi-task. If I don't look at a tab for a few minutes, then go back to that tab, there is about 8-20 seconds (Just tested with the average being 2-12 seconds. It's usually longer while multi-tasking) before the tab resumes its previous state. Is that normal?
« Last Edit: April 22, 2013, 11:30:02 PM by !Donovan »
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Offline !Donovan

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2013, 01:12:23 AM »
Well apparently Windows 7 uses less resources than Windows Vista. I tested 720p on a family member's netbook (win7 32bit 1gb ram) and it runs just fine with very few frameskips after the video was cached.
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Offline bob3160

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2013, 01:22:05 AM »
If you had tried Windows 8, you would have seen that it's even faster and less ram hungry.  :)
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Offline !Donovan

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2013, 01:28:10 AM »
If you had tried Windows 8, you would have seen that it's even faster and less ram hungry.  :)

I'd assume so. I have tried the 4gb and 6gb versions of Windows 8 at the stores, however I've yet to see the Windows 7 experience.

I merely tested 720p on her laptop. I have no experience with the workings of Windows 7 whatsoever.

How would you rate the differences in speed between Windows 7 and Windows 8?
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Offline bob3160

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2013, 01:37:20 AM »
I have a computer at the senior center that had XP with i gig of Ram.
It ran like a dog with arthritis. Once I switched it over to Windows 8.
the arthritis was gone. :)
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Offline !Donovan

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2013, 01:48:27 AM »
Would the same apply when switching from XP to Windows 7?

As I personally do not like many aspects of Windows 8, would it be worth keeping it as the computer's primary OS instead of downgrading?

Also: Upgrading the family computer isn't much of an option. The hardware itself was "Designed for Windows XP".
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Offline bob3160

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2013, 02:22:32 AM »
Would the same apply when switching from XP to Windows 7?

As I personally do not like many aspects of Windows 8, would it be worth keeping it as the computer's primary OS instead of downgrading?

Also: Upgrading the family computer isn't much of an option. The hardware itself was "Designed for Windows XP".
Not in my opinion. Sorry
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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #12 on: April 26, 2013, 02:25:32 AM »
My Win7 64 bit machine is used for 3D gaming and does just fine with 6GB of DDR3 1333 dual channel RAM. 512mb of that is dedicated to the graphics.  I also have set the page file to a fixed 512mb and have had no problems. The XP and Vista machines both have 2GB and run well that way, especially the XP one which only has DDR memory. The Vista one has faster DDR2 RAM.

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2013, 02:31:54 AM »
Would the same apply when switching from XP to Windows 7?

As I personally do not like many aspects of Windows 8, would it be worth keeping it as the computer's primary OS instead of downgrading?

Also: Upgrading the family computer isn't much of an option. The hardware itself was "Designed for Windows XP".
There could be driver problems between XP hardware and Win8. Especially for laptops which many times have manufacturer specific drivers for some of their features. I ran the upgrade advisor on my Win 7 laptop and even it showed problems in going to 8. I wasn't going to do it anyway but that just shows how driver problems can come up. I believe in using the OS the computer was designed for.

Offline bob3160

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Re: How much RAM does your computer have?
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2013, 02:48:03 AM »
Amazing that with all the systems I've converted to Windows 8, I never ran into a problem
except my Dell Vostro Mini and even that one was eventually converted once I was able to change the
"unchangeable" Screen size:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=93544.msg840792#msg840792
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