Does 8GB of DDR2 RAM slow performance?

[Rodin]

Hello All,

I recently installed two pairs of this RAM in my PC -

OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227289

I do a lot of 3D animation and art (ZBrush, 3ds Max, etc.), so I thought I'd take advantage of the cheap RAM prices and up my PC's ram to 8GB.

My PC is a Dell XPS 720 running Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Dell's 720 XPS BOIS doesn't allow you change the RAM's voltage directly, but it does let you enable EPP/SLI memory.

After enableing EPP/SLI, the BIOS listed the memory as running at 1066.

Here's my main question -

When I spoke with a support person at OCZ, he claimed that running over 4 to 6GB of DDR2 RAM will actually make a PC run slower and possibly even make it unstable.

He claimed that you should really only run 8GB of memory if you run DDR3 memory on a DDR3 compatible mother board.

I was quite surprised by his claims. I've seen so many individuals running 8GB of DDR2 RAM.

I'd great appreciate feedback from the forum as to whether the OCZ's support person was right.

[Amd Athlon]

looking towards your query i feel that first of all your motherboard should be compatible with DDR2 ram and you should be having a hard drive higher capacity one, as so ram could support your machine

eg:if you have 80gb hard drive then you cannot put 2 Gb ram in it.
this can make your machine unstable.........
so i think you should check your hard drive capacity and it is well capable then you have no problem inserting 8 gb stick in it..........

[MattyBoy]

Have a look at similar thread

RAM for a Dell XPS 720 pc

Your Dell XPS Desktops can support up to 8GB of memory. For optimal performance install the maximum amount of memory in each socket.

[Rodin]

Thanks for the responses guys.

My PC is made to run DDR2. That's not the issue.

My question is whether any desktop that's designed to run DDR2 uses 8GB of RAM efficiently.

Here's some interesting benchmarking that I found -
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mem...emory-better/2

As I mentioned, the OZC support person thought that it was a bad idea for ANYONE to put 8GB of DDR2 on ANY desktop because it will hurt performace and potenially make the system unstable.

While the benchmarking in the above link does seem to back up the idea that 8GB of DDR2 can make a machine less responsive, I've haven't heard that it can make a machine unstable.

[MattyBoy]

hi,
8GB RAM is unnecessry for almost 90% of all computer users.Don't think ram will make your computer any faster. 4GB is probably the sweet-spot even that is overkill for most.Remember you will need a 64 bit operating system to utilize the 8GB.

[Rodin]

hi,
8GB RAM is unnecessry for almost 90% of all computer users.Don't think ram will make your computer any faster. 4GB is probably the sweet-spot even that is overkill for most.Remember you will need a 64 bit operating system to utilize the 8GB.

Does anyone actually read the first post in these threads? It doesn't seem like it.

I mentioned that I'm running x64 Vista.

I also simultaneously run applications like ZBrush, 3ds Max, Photoshop, etc. Having more than 4GB of RAM will definitely benefit you in those situations.

Also, I never asked if 8GB of RAM will make a Desktop run faster. The OCZ support guy claimed it will actually greatly diminish a PC's speed and also could make it unreliable. I'm not so concerned with speed as much a reliability.

[T.J.]

maybe the timing for the new ram isnt set correctly in your bios ... most bioses have a auto timing detection, which is set by defualt ... go in and manual set it, timing info is either in the box or on there website

anyways...what do you want to do with 8gigs of ram, fly the space shuttle?

And, also on many sites I have heard that 8gbs of ram really slow down the computer and so mostly its a overkill.

[Rodin]

maybe the timing for the new ram isnt set correctly in your bios ... most bioses have a auto timing detection, which is set by defualt ... go in and manual set it, timing info is either in the box or on there website

anyways...what do you want to do with 8gigs of ram, fly the space shuttle?

And, also on many sites I have heard that 8gbs of ram really slow down the computer and so mostly its a overkill.

Yes, it's true, no one actually reads the question.

Both issues you bring up were already covered in my first post -


I do a lot of 3D animation and art (ZBrush, 3ds Max, etc.), so I thought I'd take advantage of the cheap RAM prices and up my PC's ram to 8GB.

My PC is a Dell XPS 720 running Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Dell's 720 XPS BOIS doesn't allow you change the RAM's voltage directly, but it does let you enable EPP/SLI memory.

After enableing EPP/SLI, the BIOS listed the memory as running at 1066.

I'll move on

[tallgirl]

Yes, it's true, no one actually reads the question.

Most people on sites like this wouldn't know what to do with the question even if they did read it.

You can create performance problems with large amounts of memory if your program works IN memory and your hard drives don't have the bandwidth to page the program in reasonable amounts of time. The symptom is a growing "Commit Charge" and a spike in paging I/O whenever you open or close the program, or when you open a 2nd or 3rd program and the system needs to page A LOT. With a smalller amount of RAM you'll run slower all the time (paging I/O overhead) and see less of a spike / hang as the paging I/O happens, so your perception will be that the computer is "faster". In reality, it is running slower, but it doesn't have a big paging hang.

The fix for problems caused by too much RAM is faster disks. If you don't already have SATA II drives, that would be the next solution -- get some. If you have SATA II drives, I'd add a hardware RAID 0 (striping) adapter and stripe your C:\ drive. That will spread the I/O out over more spindles. Note that you want RAID 0 -- RAID 1 is great for error handling, but does nothing for performance.