Windows 10: A tired and oft repeated question on memory

I've starting reading up on current computer components anticipating my purchase of a Thinkpad replacement. It's always said, "you can never have enough RAM". Fine, I would agree based upon my prior experience so I was preparing to configure with 12-16 GB of RAM until I read several articles (don't remember the sites but the sources seemed solid) on the subject. The consensus was (absent 3D imaging, heavy graphics rendering...) installing more than 8 GB you could expect to see some serious diminishing returns (waste of money) and in some instances a loss of performance. This was largely based upon the current speed of RAM and 'current technology' (whatever that's supposed to imply).

To fill out the picture, the laptop would have an SSD main drive and a SATA 2nd drive in (what would normally be) the DVD bay. The OS would soon be 10.

Agree?

:)

 

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I would agree with your statement. I have 16gb ram and I find that it has never used more than 6gb. So 8gb should be the current sweet spot. Unless of course you do editing then 16gb would be enough. I cant see a need for 32gb currently.

If you're planning to put the ssd as the OS drive then yes I'd agree. Make sure it's in sata port 0 for best performance. You can always check the manual to see which ports are sata 3.

 

Two GB per core seems to be best and anything more may be a waste.

 

When several general purpose programs are open and maybe 2 actually working a task and you then ask 1 to execute another task and you get a 'not responding' while the program/system 'catches up', is this a bottleneck that would likely be resolved with a 4 vs 2 core processor or a SSD drive or both?

 

All of the above but for different reasons and therefore "medicine" for hiccup. If it's because of slow read of data from disk than SSD would help. If the program just stopped while "thinking" about some problem, a core or two added would help. If you keep task manager open while doing things that get stuck, you can see if it's processor, RAM or disk that have a sharp spike in usage.

 

I had tried as you suggested but at the time I was only seeing RAM and processor usage not drive access (other than watching the drive light which did generally go solid). So my thinking has been that the drive was the largest culprit but likely had some help from the processor. The Thinkpad is 7-8 years old. I say is only out of respect for its long time service. The machine was freezing for a couple of minutes every few days and disconnected itself from our home network. I reverted to an earlier date with system restore but the machine choked after boot trying to load windows. So even if it does get working I'm using my wife's laptop and will be ordering new after I've cleared some more questions that I'll be posting under separate titles.

 

RAM requirements depend largely on what applications you use, and what your work patterns are.

There are many tasks that benefit from more memory besides 3D rendering. For instance, as a software developer, i'm constantly pushing the boundary of 16GB because I often have multiple copies of Visual Studio open, and each takes several gigabytes of memory each. Sometimes I have 15-30 tabs open in IE (plus tabs open in chrome). I'm often using 6-8GB just in browser memory.

If you're a gamer, some games will use that memory (most probably won't). However, let's look at it... 16GB costs $100, 8GB costs $50... so it's not that huge of a price difference, and if you end up needing it, you have it.

If you don't do anything that needs a lot of memory, and you're not a "power user", chances are 8GB will be fine for you, but I don't view an extra $50 as all that big of a deal

 

Memory--here's the (my) nut of it. I've had Thinkpad's since '98. Each time I've either bought the memory recommended for the system or upped the value and after a year or so either been pissed I couldn't increase memory unless I dumped existing and bought new or added. With memory prices as low as they are, price isn't the factor. What spooked me was the article(s) saying you could actually diminish performance with too much memory???? If that's not the case I'd gladly err on the way too much side when ordering (even a rat learns after a few trips through a maze).

 

The only performance you might diminish is that things like memory dumps might take longer to accomplish. Windows is designed to use all your memory for caching and what not to improve performance overall.

 

Windows XP and before, did have some problems with too much RAM, just didn't know how to use it properly but even than eventual loss of performance was imperceptible. On the other hand, when XP was made 2 GB of RAM was plenty and XP used to swap to disk like crazy, needed or not.
Windows 7 improved RAM handling a lot but W8 upped it a level or two. So, only limit now is windows version (as in x86 - x64, home edition etc.) Otherwise, too much free RAM is useless and just money throwing away.
There may be some uses of extra in extra large memory, like RamDisk for temp files but even that becomes a moot point with advent of fast SSDs.
Many are complaining that W8 leaves too little free memory but to a point (if there's no memory leak) is a good thing, much better than to swap to disk all the time which is slower even with SSD.
So go ahead and stuff as much RAM as your wallet and HW permits, won't slow down anything.

 

If you are using virtual machines on your laptop for product development or testing you can use ram up fast. Buy as much as you can afford. Your computer will use it. 1 of my PC's has 32GB DDR3 2400Mhz and I do use it all up with virtual machines. The next tier of machines I have 16GB and the Media Center machines have 4GB.
It all depends on what you are doing with the machine.