Maximum PC

Can anybody here answer my question? I'm wanting to know why Maximum Pc rarely if ever mentions building computers with more than 1.. that's ONE gig of ram. Mobo's may be able to handle up to 3 gigs, but still they always sum up a "dream machine" with "stick in one gig of ram and.... " that's it! I've inquired about this with MPC, but no answers yet, so I came on here looking for some sort of explanation... can anybody answer this burning question? Thanks!

there's not really too much that u can do that would require more than 1 gig of ram ...

Most game systems dont require more than 1GB. You can still get by with 512MB of RAM these days, although 1GB is becomming more and more common.

For gaming systems you want to have faster hard drives (or arrrays), faster video cards and faster procs.

It's simple.

DRAM manufacturers can't make huge density chips yet with low memory timings yet. When was the last time you saw a 1GB stick of PC3500 with a CAS/CL of 2?

well, my beef with it is, the mobo manufacturers usually allow more than one gig, in other words, a mobo's specs are that they can handle more than one gig of ram, so why not max that out? Why build a system with all the high end components then not let them have the absolute most potential? I built my own system a year ago and stuck in 1.5 gigs of ram, but had to cut back when one of the slots was bad. I had the computer up and running and basically let it go.

Because that follows the same logic as saying that most mobos have 4 or 5 PCI slots, so why not max them out? If it's not going to be used, then it's a waste of funds and untapped potential, not "absolute most potential." Most people will find 512mb sufficient, I'd personally like to have 1g. Anything above that will not see any benefit except for some very specific apps and tasks.

I've not done extensive testing, so don't quote me on this, but the only app or game I've used in ages that ever uses more than 1GB of memory is Planetside.

Nothing else comes close, although I expect Doom3 and (maybe) Half-Life 2 will as well.

What he said

Ok.. so this kinda explains it. Maybe I'm a little green here, so forgive me, but what about the paging file? Isn't that set on how much RAM you have available? So, greater the ram, the greater the paging file size?

no, u can make the paging file whatever size u want it to be. and actually, u want the page file to be used the least amount possible. the best thing u could do with 3GBs of ram is set up 2GBs to be a RAM drive and put ur page file on that since windows likes to use it for no reason. that would increase performance a bit.

That's a very expensive tweak. The downside to that is that the memory you assign for the RAM drive is no longer available to system RAM. 2Gigs of ram isn't cheap, so throwing most of it out of normal use is a very drastic decision in order to have a game level load quicker. And having a Gig of Ram and 2 Gigs of virtual memory is serious overkill...RAM drive or physical drive. I don't eat up near that anyway...

If some program uses more than one Gig of system memory, the program PROBABLY has a leak:p

i didnt say it was cheap, or the way to go, just about the only thing i could think of that u could use 3GBs of ram for ...

Give this a gander:

http://www.ultratech-llc.com/KB/?File=/pagefile.txt

Thanks One4yu2c, good link. I'm in waiting atm for pci express to come along before I delve into upgrading my computer. This helps out a lot. Thanks again!

Welcome

far cry? that would have been my guess...but i would also think that would use more graphics ram than system ram

I'd say Far Cry as well.

The memory on the video card handles displaying pixels and graphics only, while system memory handles the game's physics...which are becomming more and more complex.

This is also one of the reasons why AMD is the gaming CPU choice. The onboard memory controller is so much more efficient, and it shines:D