64-bit Vista, memory, and you

2GB too many

(Credit: Gateway)

Last month's desktop announcement from Gateway showed us two things: one, that desktop memory is now more affordable than ever; and two, that the 64-bit software era is upon us in full force.

Each of the four desktops Gateway announced that day comes with 64-bit Vista, and they also all have either 4GB or 6GB of RAM. Considering the decidedly mainstream $550 to $1,150 price range for those PCs, all of a sudden those exotic features don't seem so exotic any more. But then we got our hands on one of those new Gateways for a review. What we found surprised us.

What we learned in our recent review of the $1,150 Gateway FX4710 is that 6GB of RAM actually made almost no difference in current applications. We became suspicious when we compared its scores with the 4GB-equipped Gateway FX7026. To be sure, we ran our complete desktop benchmark suite (minus Crysis, which was acting weird) on the FX4710 three times, with 2GB, 4GB, and 6GB of RAM installed.

As you can see in the charts below, moving from 2GB to 4GB in 64-bit has a definite performance impact, in some cases, especially in Photoshop and on our multimedia multitasking test, both of which handle large amounts of data at once. But going from 4GB to 6GB got us much less of a boost.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

4GB Gateway FX7026

106 

4GB Gateway FX4710

108 

6GB Gateway FX4710

108 

2GB Gateway FX4710

143 

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

4GB Gateway FX7026

142 

6GB Gateway FX4710

144 

4GB Gateway FX4710

149 

2GB Gateway FX4710

150 

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

4GB Gateway FX7026

523  

6GB Gateway FX4710

524 

4GB Gateway FX4710

529 

2GB Gateway FX4710

548 

Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Rendering Multiple CPUs

Rendering Single CPU

6GB Gateway FX4710

10,767 

3,009 

4GB Gateway FX4710

10,628 

2,975 

4GB Gateway FX7026

10,306 

3,008 

2GB Gateway FX4710

9,343 

2,682 

Unreal Tournament 3 (in frames per second)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,920x1,200

1,280x1,024

6GB Gateway FX4710

83 

141 

2GB Gateway FX4710

82 

135 

4GB Gateway FX4710

82 

135 

4GB Gateway FX7026

79 

123 

Gateway is not the only vendor guilty of selling more memory than is necessary at the moment. HP also has options for 6GB and even 8GB of RAM on some of its desktops. And to both vendors' credit, at least they offer 64-bit Vista. Dell still doesn't.

This is also not to say that 6GB and higher will never have an impact. We just need new versions of Photoshop and other applications to come out that can support those higher memory allotments. But right now, you'd be smarter to spend your money on a faster CPU or graphics card, or some added features before boosting a 64-bit Vista system with more than 4GB of memory.

[nxcmp]

So what!! Ya not many programs can take advantage of 6-8 Gig of RAM. As for the kind of person I am, have you even considered virtualization, as an option ? Yes don't hound me about it, the tests are viewed toward the modern user but still ! Say if you had 6Gig of ram, In a 64-bit OS you want an even amount of RAM to be split by the number of CPU cores you have. Have a Dual Core CPU? Great ! 3 Gig of RAM for each.

[maxdiputs]

Sometimes it really shows that the people at cnet don't have actual degrees in anything related to computer technology. The whole point of having 8gb of ram is so that you can turn off virtual memmory and the extremely slow paging file system. Why don't you rerun your meaningless tests but with the paging file in windows turned off. Then compare 2, 4, and 8 gb machines (6 is retarded and should be ignored because the memory sizes are usually 2 x 2 gb and 2 x 1 gb).

[dmarkle]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't think you can accuse any vendor of selling too much memory -- especially with virtualization becoming more and more mainstream. Very soon, even average consumers are going to start using VMs all over the place, and when they do, they'll likely need well over even 6GB of memory.

[clrgj2]

Over the next few years, there will be even more applications and games that require 4 or more GB ram. But for now, i am happy with my 2GB

[ronnopiano]

I guess for the casual user, more ram doesn't always equal better performance. With that being said, I am a professional photographer & PC enthusiast who just built a new machine. I opted for 64 bit Vista Ultimate with a motherboard that supports quad core, 800, 1066 & 1333 MHz system bus. The RAM is DDR2 1066. I'm not running any paging files on any of my hard drives. I also run a MS Virtual PC as Quickbooks doesn't support 64 bit. I have MS XP Pro running as a Virtual PC. With all the Vista goodies left on, I'm still only using perhaps 20% of my RAM. So What? When I render video on this system, it's amazingly fast and uses all four processing cores. Anything to keep Windows from accessing scratch disk is a positive thing. RAM is King no matter what your tests show!

[Tinman52]

I would agree with everything above. Maybe the casual user doesn't need all the memory. However, there are a lot of ways to utilize more than 4GB of memory if you're doing something more advanced than MS Office with your machine. Computers need to be replaced/upgraded every so often, but I'd prefer to buy/build something that's not obsolete in 12 months. Last year 2GB was enough. This year, it doesn't get you too far. Next year, 4GB isn't going to be a lot.

[The_Decider]

The problem is that Vista uses so much memory that you don't see much in the way of performance gains, like you might with XP, Linux, or OSX.

Secondly, there are other factors that determine performance more than memory. On a lower end OEM machine, you are not going to get a very good processor, memory will be high latency, the video card will suck, and the HD will not post good latency and rotational delay times. The OS is also a significant factor, as there are many legitimate benchmarks that show that Vista causes common appls to run significantly slower than on the moderately performing Windows XP.

[dreamer77dd]

i would have like to have known what would be using so much ram in the near future. what software, when it will come out and so on. i like looking forward tot hese types of things as for now i do not know what takes even 1 gig of ram. I only know it helps with manyy programes and windows to function right with 2 gigs of ram but for a programed to use ine gig of ram, i would not know what that is. Anyways more on software that needs ram and the future would ahve bin nice,

[rasmasyean]

How is running one program supposed to benchmark the advantage of more RAM? Try running 20 like how many office workers do. In addition, the Superfetch advantage (which is not even considered here) makes much use of multiple apps running and periodic usage. If you don't know what that is...

Vista uses extra RAM to store commonly used files in a new activity known as ?disk caching? (SuperFetch). The computer uses artificial intelligence to determine which files will be used most and copies it to RAM (where it is much faster than accessing your hard disk). This includes components of the programs you use on a regular basis. When you need more RAM for programs you launch, etc. the computer purges the ?least likely used? files from RAM to make room for the new program. So in theory, the more RAM (for disk cache) you have, the faster your computer will operate. This can also be augmented (to a lesser effect) with a flash drive/card with a technology called ReadyBoost. Just stick it in and select ?Speed up my system? and leave it there. Google ?AnandTech ReadyBoost Performance? for basic test examples.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=735
High RAM will be especially helpful for those people who like to leave all their windows open and use Vista?s ?S3 sleep mode? (2 watts) so they can resume where they left off almost immediately after they turn their computers on. Your apps are pre-opened where you left them and your RAM cache is loaded too, just as if you just walked away and came back.

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx

Considering this, SuperFetch is probably the most significant feature that distinguishes Vista from all other OS's for the users across the board. Many other features won't be noticeable or even used by the common person (that is until commercial developers start using WPF/WFC etc., and even more DX10). So why not take advantage of it?