How important is RAM?

[g-codeguy]

Just got 2 new Dells. Came with 1GB of RAM. IT guy tells us that another gig won't speed things up. I find this hard to believe. Every PC magazine article on speeding up your computer I've read over the years has said the same thing. Add more memory.

[iowajim62]

quote:

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IT guy tells us that another gig won't speed things up

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He is an idiot

Seriously, never enough ram. More ram faster PC, that simple. 32 bit windoze 2-3 gigs, 64 bit windoze as much as you can afford.

[bogusmill]

If it uses DDR2 that's dirt cheap right now so why wouldnt you do it. Dell may have put 4x256Mb sticks in which is terrible. Get a 2Gb kit, it will have 2 matched sticks and install in the #1 and #3 RAM slot. If Dell put in 2x512Mb sticks you can move those to one machine an get the matched pair for the other. The matched pair PC will be just a bit quicker.

[g-codeguy]

Thanks guys. Been reading PC magazines off-and-on for the past 25-30 years. Figured he was full of it. He (and others in command) want to do things the absolute cheapest way. Usually it's false economy.

 

Save 10% on a drill. Never mind the fact that the more expensive drill lasts 10 times as long.

[Robert Critelli]

your computer must be gasping for electrical flow

[Troy Gossett Indepak Inc.]

I opened System information the other day and my system was using 598mb of 4gig this was before opening anything. Currently w/ 2 mcam outlook and Firefox ram is at 1394mb, 2700mb available.

[Guest]

quote:

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How important is RAM?

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Not at all.

 

Tell the idiot IT guy to just take it out, you don't need it anyway.

 

:sheesh:

[Guest]

now thats funny right thar dont care who ya are

[Goldorak]

to g-codeguy :

sell your computer and buy one of theese , they are a lot cheaper

 

 

on MC i to pretty simple stuff and i got 3GB of ram and it's ok , i usually run 2 or 3 sessions of mastercam+firefox+mail+ MS excel

[Guest]

ya you could use a stick of ram to slide it.

[g-codeguy]

Semi-retired office manager asked me today if the new computer was any faster than my old one. Told him I ran a benchmark test on both of them. The new one was almost exactly 3 minutes faster. He told me that was nothing. Going to the bathroom would take that long.

 

Told him "Okay, next time boss comes to me because a job is running 5 seconds slower this time than it did last time...on a different machine, I will send him to see you. You can tell him 5 seconds is nothing to worry about. Time is money in their pocket."

 

Afraid I let him have both barrels for several minutes. He has the same attitude as the owners and IT guy. Squeeze a nickel til the buffalo cries 'Uncle'. Step on a $20 bill to pick up a quarter.

[FP1]

I was also wondering if more ram would speed things up. My pc had 1Gb of ram and the mastercam benchmark test took 6min 25sec. I recently did a memory upgrade. With only mcam running, going from 1Gb to 2Gb of DDR2-800 ram gave the exact same benchmark time of 6 min 25 sec.

 

The lesson learned: You will get a bigger bang for the buck by putting your money into a faster CPU, but I still wouldn't go with anything less than 2Gb of ram nowadays. Based on my test I think 4Gb of ram might be a little overkill for the average user.

 

With the extra ram I did see an improvement in general speed when I was running firefox, Outlook, word, excel, ACT, and mastercam all at the same time. I didn't try running the benchmark test with all this other stuff running.

[Jaz]

I recently upgraded from 2Gb to 4Gb RAM and was pleasantly suprised. No gain in the benchmark file proccessing, but significant improvement in processing larger 5 axis toolpaths.

[Guest]

You know, at the end of the day, the "Benchmark" file we all are using just "kind" of gives you a sense of performance.

 

There are so many other variables to system speed.

 

But yes in my own testing, with all systems having 2 gigs of RAM, it was abundantly clear that CPU frequency is the largest deciding factor in processing THAT file.

 

DUO or QUAD did not make any real difference as the quickest system I ran the benchmark on was a Duo core that was "almost" 2 full minutes faster than a Quad core.

 

Same software running on the systems, same drives, same RAM, the difference a 2.4 Ghz Quad vs. a 3.0 Ghz Duo. 1066 Mhz FSB vs. 1333 Hhz FSB

 

The Duo was faster.

 

So "assuming" your system has enough RAM to run your open applications without doing a ton of writing to the paging file and bottle necking your system, the first things you should be going after is CPU cycles.

[Piglet Trespassers William]

For the type of work I have 1 gig is nothing .

And if I open simultaneously more than one Mastercam ?

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Based on my test I think 4Gb of ram might be a little overkill for the average user.

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Not at all .

Your can have small toolpathes but huge models

with lots of solids ,surfaces ,splines and etc .

In such a case to open couple of Mastercams with little memory is an invitation for crash