New RAM 1G or 2G?

[Auminer]

Time for more RAM, here is my setup. Asus A7N8X Deluxe which supports DDR 400 (pc3200) ram and I have 3 slots of which two are for matched sticks for the double rate. I'm thinking about getting either the Corsair 1G or 2G, but wanted to get first hand experience of the difference between the two with PSCS and RAW files especially. I also know the more RAM the better, but noticed PS has a sweet spot of 1G or at least thats the way I read it. Is there that much difference between 1G and 2G providing you have your page files, scratch disks, and memory usage set properly?

Need to cut down on excessive spending, but need a good system.

Dave

[Tom Nolle]

I've got 1G RAM and that seems more than enough for Photoshop, and even handles keeping Outlook and a stock ticker running at the same time. I think that there are some situations in handling layers and multiple images where having more than a gig would be helpful, though. If you do a lot of that sort of stuff, it might be worth it. I'd look into getting two hard drives RAID 0 striped to improve load/save times, though.

Tom

[Auminer]

Thanks for the help Tom. I do work with multiple images and layers at times, but would probably be satisified with the 1G even with that. I don't use the Raid setup as I only have the one 7200 rpm 120G Sata drive, but have two other internal ide drives and an 250G external running at 7200 with a 8M buffer. I can't have everything, but wanted more than the 512M Ram I have now. I might go with the 1G (512 matching in each slot) and have the 3rd slot open for additional. Come to think of it, if I do decide later to add ram in the 3rd slot will that interfer with the matched pair?

Dave

[stevebri]

Dave,

I looked into this a while back and found out, with the help of Swampy, that quality makes a difference as well, especially of you are pushing your board/chip with the higher fsb.

I would look at maybe buying 1G but buying the extreme or higher spec (and priced) stuff.

Your 'puter will be more stable and more consistent when you leave it to convert 80 RAW's or, if you really want to make it sweat, make id prepare contact sheets for 80 raw's....!

I'm sure Swanpy and one or two other top techie's will add their thoughts.

Steve

[Melody]

Hi Dave,

I really like what Bryan configured for me, I've got an alienware desktop and laptop too. Be SURE to mention you want to cut down on expenses to him though! Or get out the platinum card. OH yeah and don't end up with swamp green :rofl: (don't tell him I actually like it now) At least my desktop is blue :)

Melody

[robinp]

My tuppence worth -

Go with two sticks of 512MB from crucial.com and keep any money saved towards your next lens!

Cheers, Robin

[Auminer]

I would look at maybe buying 1G but buying the extreme or higher spec (and priced) stuff.
Thanks Steve, thats why I have decided on Corsair as mentioned, but maybe this is more for gamers rather than PS...? Don't ask how I know the value of quality name brand memory :)

alienware :eek:
That thing belongs in area 51! Good gear though!

Go with two sticks of 512MB from crucial.com and keep any money saved towards your next lens!
Thanks Robin, I'm leaning toward the two 512M sticks now and I like the Crucial I'm running now, but read that Corsair has an edge...see note to Steve.
...and keep any money saved towards your next lens!
Right on the money, or maybe a new F-mount body? :)

Dave

[HulaMike]

Hi Dave,

I really like what Bryan configured for me, I've got an alienware desktop and laptop too. Be SURE to mention you want to cut down on expenses to him though! Or get out the platinum card. OH yeah and don't end up with swamp green :rofl: (don't tell him I actually like it now) At least my desktop is blue :)

Melody

Melody,

I looked at Alienware when pricing a new Dell. Almost double the cost for comparable components. What makes Alienware that much better??? Better cabeling? Across the board higher end components? I'd seriously like to know even though my new sytem has already been ordered.

Dave, for what it's worth; I considered 1 gig RAM on my new system but opted for 2 GB (almost went for 4 GB!). My thinking being that you never have enough memory on occasion and who knows what size file we'll all be crushing in a year or so.

[Melody]

Hi Mike,

I couldn't begin to answer that one. My laptop sort of expensive as far as they go I suppose.

The desktop really wasn't that different in price I don't think from one I originally ordered from Dell that he configured however I sent it back after one week and replaced it with the Alienware.

We'll have to ask Bryan to answer this one.

Here's my green laptop hehe!

Melody

[HulaMike]

It is a cool design but is that it? An alien looking box with green lights? (joke)

Why did you send back your Dell? Was it Bryan's advice? He would know. Did you have a problem with it? Better yet, how did you get Dell to take it back? I still might be able to cancell my Dell as it's in pre-production right now according to the web site.

Are you and Swampy on chat right now? Maybe we could talk this out.

[Swampy]

Configured comparibly, the Alienware comes with a better case (better cooling and more external connections), more options, the name and prestige, a faster processor (3.4 Extreme versus Dell's max of 3.2 Extreme), better motherboard with more features, same or better memory (I can't verify that unless you get me two systems to open up. :)), Colors and a 12x DVD writer versus an 8x.

The motherboard really does it for me as Alienware uses an Asus, which I've sworn by for many years. The intel Motherboards have always given me less features and more problems. Pretty much everything else is the same. Same Hard drive configuration, same Video card, same sound card.

You can also get other options not available from Dell configured into the Alienware. Will someone notice the difference? Someone might, like myself, but most people won't. But, would you rather have a Ford or a BMW - going back to one of your earlier statements. :)

Price difference between the two was $441. Dell coming in at about $3352 and the Alienware with the differences listed above was $3793.

[Swampy]

It is a cool design but is that it? An alien looking box with green lights? (joke)

Why did you send back your Dell? Was it Bryan's advice? He would know. Did you have a problem with it? Better yet, how did you get Dell to take it back? I still might be able to cancell my Dell as it's in pre-production right now according to the web site.

Are you and Swampy on chat right now? Maybe we could talk this out.

It's the glowing Alien eyes on the back of the LCD that I like on the laptop. :)

We're in Chat right now, but for me, don't know how much longer.

Wasn't really my recommendation to return the dell. It just didn't work right when she got it.

[HulaMike]

Thanks B. If you cruised my other thread below (which HDs) I listed out what I ordered from Dell. My cost with a 15% Small Business discount online was $2826 after discount. The comparable Alienware was around $4500.

I don't know about motherboards or what the new Xeon processor offers over a P4 HT 3.2GHz. Note that I didn't go with the Extreme Edition based on info from Connie (VA Shooter). I did get 2 GB dual chanel DDR SDRAM and the fastest video card Dell offers right now, 256MB DDR ATI RADEON 9800 XT. I read the chart at Alienware that showed increased performance over Dell but couldn't evaluate the graph in real world terms.

[Wichita Wayne]

But what he wants is one that is alcohol cooled with two processors running at 4 gHz. with 12 GB of RAM.

Auminer, I have 1.28 GB of RAM on my laptop and it runs fine. Our desktop computers have 512 MBof RAM and they seem to run fine with that. Especially if you only open one program at a time. After telling you all of that I will also say that if I were you I would go ahead and get 2 GB because for some reason every time I have added RAM to a computer it seems to run better.

[Face]

Hi all, i was long time out of my country without the possibility to write at this forum.

For the memory question requested by photoshop is a gold rule to follow.

Normaly Photoshop use RAM 3 times the file that is open on photoshop.
ex. if u are working with a file of 20 mb thant for normal operation photoshop use 60 mb of memory only for the file , this rule was with older photoshop but is still valid for the newer versions of Photoshop only depend on the number of undo and history that u set on photoshop.

Due to this fack a 1Gb memory is good to open an elaborate files that are from 100 to 150 mb each, calculating here the quantity of ram from 90-140 mb that is used for the operating system.
The speed of the system depend from the processor and its calculating power.

Photoshop use allways a scratch disk , but its go speeder if u leave for the scratch a secondary harddrive or a secondary partition , not the same with the operating system.

Petrit

[Auminer]

After telling you all of that I will also say that if I were you I would go ahead and get 2 GB because for some reason every time I have added RAM to a computer it seems to run better. Wayne, that is what I believe too, but with newer stuff coming out, what seems like daily, I didn't want to get more than needed now. I just had a Seagate 120G SATA drive go out on me and wouldn't you know it, this had the XP OS on it. Man, do I miss PS CS!!!! Running 98se now as it was my dual boot. This sort of puts a kink in the 2G Ram plans! :mad:
Photoshop use allways a scratch disk , but its go speeder if u leave for the scratch a secondary harddrive or a secondary partition , not the same with the operating system.I was aware of the scratch disk being on a seperate partition, but it never occured to me that it should be on a seperate disk from the OS. Thanks Petrit!! And thanks for explaining the "rule of thumb" on PhotoShop Ram usage, it all helps.

Dave

[stevebri]

I always thought Photoshop used FIVE times the file size...!!!

Maybe it was up to version 7 and only three for CS...

If you want to save money SATA drives don't offer much in 'real time' speed increase over traditional 7200rpm drives, but are much more money.

Taking a leaf from Swampy's tree, I am about to build a stsyem with most money spent on:

FSB (fast chip, RAM and motherboard) and fast vid card.

Those things will quickly speed up workflow on a nanosecond per dollar /pound basis.

Hard drives are cheap now and a good IDE 120G 7200 are very cheap, so i'll probably buy several.

DVD burners are also cheap and reliable now, as is the media, and many clients of mine can now 'read' them I.E. they have the DVD drives at work.

It's horses for courses but if your main internal system is FAST, the rest won't show much 'real' difference I think... (I hope)..

Steve

[Auminer]

Still not sure about the "rule of thumb" pertaining to file size, but what is, is what is...

I've decided and ordered two SATA 160G Seagate drives and going the Raid 1 route, I need the redundacy it provides even at the cost of a slight decrease in speed. Anyone hooked up 3 SATA drives to get both speed and redundacy? I believe its called Raid 5? Maybe this is limited to servers or I may have to get an additional SATA controller because my on board controller only supports two drives...to my knowledge. :confused:
FSB (fast chip, RAM and motherboard) and fast vid card This is true, I don't have the fastest cpu (AMD 2500+ Barton), but I can always add that later as the MB (A7N8X DL) will support it. Getting the 3200 400 ram, but still not sure I want to put out the extra $$ for 2G, probably will, what the heck, its only $. :)

Dave

[robinp]

I've decided and ordered two SATA 160G Seagate drives and going the Raid 1 route, I need the redundacy it provides even at the cost of a slight decrease in speed.


Dave

Interesting story here for you Dave,

Yesterday I rebuilt my PC with a new motherboard and 2x160GB SATA RAID 1. It all went very well and tests showed an increase in speed over the previous single 80GB ATA100.
This morning disaster struck! :eek:
Switched on to be greeted by a RAID array failure screen - after a very worrying half an hour I was able to isolate the fault, it was one of the SATA leads. Very reassuring to find that the machine would boot into Windows from either of the two hard drives if they were connected with the good lead and even more reassuring to see the array rebuild itself after I got back from town with a new lead!
So, this RAID 1 stuff does work and assuming both HDD's don't fail at the same time you will be well protected - just remember though that if you accidentally delete something it will be deleted on both drives......



This is true, I don't have the fastest cpu (AMD 2500+ Barton)

Dave

Well actually you probably have a much faster CPU than you paid for - try setting the motherboard fsb and memory frequency to 400MHz (rather than the specified 333MHz) and you'll suddenly get an Athlon XP3200+ !
I have done this successfully with two different CPU's and 2 out of 3 motherboards - cheapest upgrade you'll ever get :righton:

Cheers, Robin

[Auminer]

Good to know that I'm not the only one that builds my own 'puters, been doing it for sometime now trying to get the most bang out of a buck. Besides that getting things matched up the way I want and use them. Now if I could find the parts needed for these laptops instead of relying on Dell, etc. for what they think I need... :)
So, this RAID 1 stuff does work
It isn't if, but when, and reassuring to know it does work! Thanks Robin, enjoyed your epsode especially when it came out good!
...tests showed an increase in speed over the previous single 80GB ATA100. Good news again.
try setting the motherboard fsb and memory frequency to 400MHz Yes I'm aware of this, but also have to watch my temps, still air cooled ;) I'm also going to have to check my MB numbers as I might have to flash the bios to get the 400 fsb maybe not if the version is right. I'm definitely getting the 400 ram (3200) so I'll match the MB to that and maybe bump the cpu a little to boot. Need to keep a watch on the temp though, but I do have one of those squirrel cage cpu fans to install if needed. Got any ear plugs you can spare? :rofl:

Dave

[robinp]

Yes I'm aware of this, but also have to watch my temps
Dave
My CPU temp only shows a 2 degree C rise after going from 333 to 400MHz fsb. I use an Arctic CoolerCopper Silent2 temperature controlled fan CPU heatsink
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/en/
and an Antec PSU with two temp controlled fans and control of the case fan so no hovercraft noise here! :)

Cheers, Robin

[Rockyw]

I have 2 gig of ram on my new Asus board. Last week one stick went bad. Corsair sent me a new set (they were twins) but untill then I ran with one stick (1 gig) instead of 2. I really noticed the differance when rotating a PS file of a DVD sleeve. With 2 gig, it rotates in about 5 seconds. With only 1 gig it took almost 20. I think many things in PS work about the same with 1 or 2 gig but it seems some tasks are memory hogs and 2 are much better than 1. I do know this 4800 AMD duel core it like nothing I ever built before.