New RAM Hasn't Improved Performance

[paulsif]

Hello all,

I brought myself some new RAM, my specs are now

768 MB RAM DDR 333mHz
P4 3.06 Processor

The problem is i cant notice any difference at all, it may even be running slower than normal, is there anything i can do or should of done to sort this out?

Please help

Thanks

Paul

 

[Rick]

How much did you have previously?

RAM doesn't make your computer any faster.. It lets your computer run its best. If your computer was already running pretty well before and you don't need the extra memory, then I can understand why you don't notice a difference.

For example, if you had 512MB and upgraded to 768... This would probably be very hard to notice.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

What OS are you using?
And how much ram did you have before the upgrade?

Are all the ram from the same manufacturer, or is it mix'n'match?

With a bit more info, it's easier to help you out

[EDIT]
Rick beat me to it
[/EDIT]

 

[Nodsu]

I assume the 512 MB you have in the profile was what you had before?

Going over 512 MB has no noticeable effect unless you frequently do memory intensive things.

Also, lots of memory is no use if you have to fill it from a slow and fragmented hard drive for example.

Edit: And I'm the slowest typer..

 

[paulsif]

Yes i did have 512MB before, im running on windows xp i think the makes are different but the same speeds and type

 

[Arris]

I remember upgrading from 256mb to 512mb. The difference I noticed was that Morrowind (which I was playing at the time) loaded quite a bit faster than it did with only 256mb of ram. In my mind this was worth the upgrade. Other than that I wouldn't expect to see much else change performance wise.

 

[vassil3427]

I recently went from 384mb to 768mb and the difference was incredible....everything loaded faster ect...However I doubt it would seem much faster going from 512mb...unless you're doing video editing....

 

[Rick]

To be honest, I wouldn't use less than a 1GB anymore. I might be kind of happy with 512MB, but I'm spoiled and do many things that require more than your typical computer can handle.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

I've got 1GB of ram, but must admit I don't really have much use for all of it. (512mb would've been fine, but since it was so cheap.)

The only thing where there's a diff from 512mb (that springs to mind that is), is allowing me to check the "preload all player skins" in UT2k4, and not experience stuttering because of it.

So I'm afraid your upgrade won't really be of much (immediate) notice. But in the future, you might very well run into apps which requires that amount of memory, and then you won't have to run out & buy

 

[Rory7]

Doesnt the actual speed of the RAM make a difference? like DDR 266 to DDR 400, thats were the differnce in speed isnt it. The one gig is just like the bandwidth is it not, so unless you have somthing to fill it you wont see the difference but if you upgrade the DDR or PC or whatever its called that makes the difference doesnt it?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

It is a combination.

If you just add more memory (thus staying at the same speed) you won't notice much difference there (ignoring timings), but you will notice it in memory intensive apps.

If, on the other hand as you say, go from older and slower ram to a large amount of faster ram you will see a bigger difference.
But again, going from DDR333 to DDR400 won't be that noticeable.

 

[Rick]

Increased bandwidth from one type of DDR to the next generally doesn't yeild much in the way of performance. The gain is there, but it is minimal compared to other, bigger upgrades... Like faster CPU.

 

[lowman]

I run 2 GB or RAM currently and will probably max it out at 3 GB shortly. I have an audio workstation, and I use several VSTi's (One is a sampler, the other is a Drum Kit), and they both need fair amounts of RAM, especially when doing mix downs...

When I build my gaming system, I'll probably just put 2 GB in it and that will be WAY more than enough...

 

[Didou]

I do believe it's been said before but not many people noticed it.

Adding extra memory can reduce system performance if it is unused

I've linked this article a few times allready -> Building the Ultimate High-End Gaming Workstation @ Firingsquad

Lost in Translation? Here's the summary
On the Athlon64 and Pentium4 i875 platforms, the more memory you add, the slower the memory performance. In the case of the Athlon64, the drop occurs with a drop to 1.6GB/s bandwidth, half its peak. It can transfer less data for the same amount of time. In the case of the Pentium4, the performance drop is supposed to be an increase in latency, but maintains the DDR400 bandwidth of 3.2GB/sec. It's top speed is the same, but has slower acceleration.

What we are saying is that adding extra memory can reduce system performance if it is unused. You won't believe me without the proof, so let's take a look at the benchmarks again when running additional RAM.

 

[Phantasm66]

Originally posted by Rick
To be honest, I wouldn't use less than a 1GB anymore. I might be kind of happy with 512MB, but I'm spoiled and do many things that require more than your typical computer can handle.

All my machines have 1GB. Apart from this one (that I'm writing on.)

It has 1.5GB

IMHO, RAM is the most important factor in your machine at all. I mean, I know that having a non-existant processor will mean things will never get off the ground, and that having a decent sized hard drive is good too.

Of, and of course a good monitor. And a nice, fast graphics card.

OK, lets face it, having a good, new machine is good in general.

But make RAM one of your primary considerations, if not the primary.

 

[Snakeyes]

At the risk of being obvious have you set your 'DisablePagingExecutive" to 1 in your registry. If you haven't this should make an appreciable improvement in your performance by preventing the paging of exec files to your hard drive.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management

 

[tbrunt3]

THere a few things besides ram to speed up your machine... Where Ram is a very important part of this there is also harddrive speed good video card espically playing games.,it is important to keep the harddrive defragged.. Now what type of ram are you using and what voltage do you ahve it set at??? and the lantency?? this is also a a factor what memory controllor does your motherboard have?? I personally use only 512 OCZ gamming ram in dual channel there is really nothing i cannot run... In closing how many background stuff do you have running.? check out www.blackviper.com to disable the services you do not need it is a really good site.