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topic: 1925PC Memory
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posted: 17 Apr 2012 15:35

from:

John Lewis
 
Croydon - United Kingdom

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I am contemplating buying a new PC.

Is there any real advantage in getting 16 Gb of RAM when 8 Gb is standard in the system I am thinking of getting, please? I do not go in for gaming, but I may want to edit video in the future. I do use my present PC for editing photos and there are the new versions of Templot I have not yet tried.

Any advice gratefully received.

Best wishes

John

posted: 17 Apr 2012 16:37

from:

Brian Nicholls
 
Poole - United Kingdom

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John Lewis wrote:
I am contemplating buying a new PC.

Is there any real advantage in getting 16 Gb of RAM when 8 Gb is standard in the system I am thinking of getting, please? I do not go in for gaming, but I may want to edit video in the future. I do use my present PC for editing photos and there are the new versions of Templot I have not yet tried.

Hi John,

First let me say, personally I consider it is always better to have more memory available, in general this does to some degree speed things up a little.

However, a few words of caution.

From your comment about a standard of 8 Gb, I can assume you are contemplating a 64 bit operating system machine.
If on the other hand you were getting a 32 bit PC, then you are limited to 4 Gb max, as this is the maximum addressable memory size you can have for a 32 bit machine.


Next, considering the 64 bit machine, the addressable memory is, one might say, almost infinite, therefore you can have 8 Gb, 16 Gb, 24 Gb, 32 Gb, …… etc.

Now a word about the memory cards fitted into a PC, usually the suppliers of PCs tend fill all the available slots with smaller size memory cards, usually 1 Gb, or more rarely 2 Gb sticks, because these are cheaper.

However, there are disadvantages having smaller size memory cards, and what you should ask is that they put in the larger size memory sticks 4 Gb or larger and leave empty slots for expansion, otherwise it means, that if in the future you need to expand you RAM memory and all the slots are filled then, you will have to throw away your smaller cards and replace them with larger memory stacks, thereby wasting your money.

Now the larger memory stacks may cost you a little more initially (depending on your suppliers attitude and what he has actually specified for the memory of your purchased PC) but it does give the advantage I have stated above if you initially get large size memory cards fitted from scratch.

When you first by a new PC, you always think you have sufficient RAM memory with the large  Gb numbers banded about by the suppliers, but it is amazing how soon one seems to find the limitations of what you have been given and need to expand the quantity.

I hope this helps you and does not confuse.

All the best,

Brian Nicholls.

posted: 17 Apr 2012 16:38

from:

Paul Boyd
 
Loughborough - United Kingdom

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Hi John

Firstly, I assume you'll be getting a 64 bit operating system as 32 bit can only address about 3.5Gb (2^32)

Secondly, I've seen reports that even memory hungry apps like Photoshop (CS, not Elements) don't really make full use of more than 8G, but as ever there's conflicting advice out there.  I know that with 2Gb, I've had Photoshop give me "out of memory" errors, so the more memory the better, I think.  What you will be able to do with more memory is run more applications at the same time without too much deterioration in performance.  Video editing can use as much memory as it can take, although when I used to use Pinnacle Studio 11, it ran quite happily with only 2Gb memory.

I guess the answer is, if you can afford it, go for 16Gb!  I don't know if you're buying an off the shelf PC or getting one made, but it might be relevant to be aware that some motherboards have a memory size limit of 8Gb.  Guess how I know this? :D

Cheers

posted: 17 Apr 2012 16:54

from:

Brian Nicholls
 
Poole - United Kingdom

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Hi John,

As a follow up to my message.

Paul is quite right, and it is something I, regrettably, did not mention, the motherboard can limit the maximum memory you can have on board, so ask your supplier what is the max capability for RAM memory that the supplied motherboard can take.

I would say at this point, the minimum requirement for RAM slots and addressability on the motherboard, should be at least 16 Gb or better for a modern machine.

Remember, it’s too late when you have bought the machine, or at the very best will cost you a lot more to have the motherboard replaced in order to accept more memory in the future.

All the best,

Brian Nicholls.

posted: 17 Apr 2012 17:08

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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John Lewis wrote:
there are the new versions of Templot I have not yet tried.
Hi John,

Templot is a compiled using a 32-bit compiler and cannot therefore access more than 4GB of memory, even when running on a 64-bit computer.

The same applies to all other 32-bit programs -- i.e. the vast majority of your existing software unless you upgrade to 64-bit versions.

With 32-bit programs you will only see the advantage of having more than 4GB if you want to run several such programs at the same time, all being used at near maximum capacity.

The actual figure is 232 = 4,294,967,296 bytes. Don't leave the shop without counting them. :)

regards,

Martin.

posted: 17 Apr 2012 18:01

from:

Paul Boyd
 
Loughborough - United Kingdom

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The actual figure is 232 = 4,294,967,296 bytes. Don't leave the shop without counting them.
4,294,967,290... 4,294,967,291... 4,294,96...   Ring, ring. "Hello".  Oh *%&^^%  1...2...3...4...

Tecnically, Martin is correct, but what I should have mentioned is that it's the 32bit versions of Windows limiting the maximum available to about 3.5Gb so with 4Gb in there, you won't actually see 4G available.  I don't imagine that John's OS will be Win7 Home Basic, but if so, then that can only deal with a max of 8Gb, and Home Premium can only go up to 16Gb.

And... (it goes on!!), it's best to install memory modules in pairs, apparently, so either go for two 8Gb modules in one hit, or get a motherboard with four slots, stick two 4Gb sticks in for now which leaves room for another two 4Gb sticks at a later date taking it up to 16Gb.

posted: 17 Apr 2012 20:18

from:

John Lewis
 
Croydon - United Kingdom

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My grateful thanks to Brian, Paul and Martin.

Some food for thought in your advice. I am intending to get a 32 bit version of Windows 7, either the Home Premium or the Professional. The XP mode on the Professional version looks attractive.

Thank you again


John

posted: 17 Apr 2012 20:23

from:

John Lewis
 
Croydon - United Kingdom

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Woops - I am intending to get a 64 bit version of Windows 7 NOT 32 bit.

Its all the 2^32s, I tell you!

posted: 17 Apr 2012 20:26

from:

Nigel Brown
 
 

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John

Just wondering, if you're getting a new W7 based system, is there any reason why you wouldn't go for the 64-bit version? I've just loaded W7 64-bit onto my new system and Templot works fine on it.

Cheers
Nigel
Last edited on 17 Apr 2012 20:27 by Nigel Brown
posted: 17 Apr 2012 21:24

from:

Paul Boyd
 
Loughborough - United Kingdom

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Hi John
The XP mode on the Professional version looks attractive.
Ah - if you want a virtual XP machine, you might want to look at the free VMware Player rather than pay extra for Win 7 Professional, if that's the only reason for going to Pro.  They work in slightly different ways though - I think Microsoft's version is a bit more integrated into Windows 7, whereas with WMware I can have Win7 on one monitor and XP on the other, and I can even drag and drop files between the two.

I use VMware player with XP installed as I have an ALPS printer for which no drivers exist for Win7, at least, not if I want the special printing options, and I've also discovered that my flatbed scanner only works up to 32 bit Win7, so that also now has to be run on the virtual XP machine.  As a bonus, VMware Player allows you to have loads of virtual machines with different operating systems so you could even have a play with Linux!

Have fun!

posted: 18 Apr 2012 17:40

from:

John Lewis
 
Croydon - United Kingdom

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Thank you Paul.

My reason for looking at W7 Professional, as opposed to Home Premium, was I thought I stood a better chance of my printer and flat bed scanner working with the new PC. They are rather ancient (by IT standards) but work well.

The second reason is that I have some data in Quattro Pro spreadsheets, again with an old copy of the program, the advantage of Quattro is that it can deal happily with dates in the 1800s whereas Excel will not, which makes it quite laborious to convert the spreadsheets to Excel.

Thank you for pointing out VM Ware. So far I have not had experience of virtual PCs, so I am a bit nervous about using this. I appreciate the XP mode of W7 Professional also uses a virtual mode.

Best wishes

John



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