What to upgrade?

[assassinsat]

I have an i3 2100 with a GTX 560. mobo is intel DH61WW one kingston 2GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ram and 500GB Samsung HD503HI (i'm not sure if this is the model. but it says so in device manager so it must be it lol)

ok so i was going through the windows experience index and i noted that my base score is 5.5 with the ram having the lowest subscore (5.5) and hard disk next (5.9). all other components are 7+. i am perfectly happy to game at 1280x1024 since thats what my monitor supports. All my games work perfectly except for random stutters, lags etc in crysis 2 and witcher 2 (sometimes serious lagging). Every other game works flawlessly. Was wondering what should i upgrade next in my system? any ideas?

I was thinking to upgrade ram. These are the ones i was thinking on. all are 4GB
Corsair XMS3 1600 Mhz CL9 DDR3
Corsair Vengeance 1600 Mhz CL9 DDR3
Corsair Dominator 1600 Mhz CL9 DDR3 kit

Also i want to know what difference it would make if i put in two 2GB ram cards instead of one 4GB card?

 

[o1die]

If the price is right, go for 8 gb: http://shopping.dallasnews.com/ROP/ads.aspx?advid=2519&adid=11947061&subid=36485253&type=.

 

[assassinsat]

i don't think i need that much + i can't spend on 8gb right now. Anyway thanks for the suggestion

 

[buzznut]

i don't think i need that much + i can't spend on 8gb right now. Anyway thanks for the suggestion

Yeah, def the ram is where you are lagging. Didn't see if you were on 64 bit but anything above 4 gigs doesn't make a lot of sense for 32 bit OS.
Win7 runs great with 4 gigs of ram. There are apps that can use more, and per gigabyte cost is lower for 8 gigs than 4. I, like others recommend you get as much ram as you can afford.
I wouldn't worry too much about the HD score, that is typical and quite good for a mechanical drive. For gaming an SSD doesn't do a lot, but adds significantly to overall system responsiveness.

 

[assassinsat]

Yeah, def the ram is where you are lagging. Didn't see if you were on 64 bit but anything above 4 gigs doesn't make a lot of sense for 32 bit OS.
Win7 runs great with 4 gigs of ram. There are apps that can use more, and per gigabyte cost is lower for 8 gigs than 4. I, like others recommend you get as much ram as you can afford.
I wouldn't worry too much about the HD score, that is typical and quite good for a mechanical drive. For gaming an SSD doesn't do a lot, but adds significantly to overall system responsiveness.

thanks. yea thats what i thought of as well. i am on windows 7 ultimate 32 bit but was going to upgrade to 64 bit since i heard that 32 bit doesn't give the full 4GB capacity. is that true? and what are the performance wise benefits of 64 bit OS? and what are the differences in adding two 2gb sticks instead of one 4gb stick?

 

[CaedenV]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture
According to this, and to Tom's, there is only a 5% performance gain with duel channel memory. Win7 (and vista) 32bit will address 4GB of ram, but nothing further, while XP will only address ~3.5GB of ram. And there is a performance difference between 32bit and 64bit Win7, it is also minimal (most precieved gain is in that 32bit is mostly seen in netbooks and other low end equipment). But having put both 32 and 64bit on my netbook I can confirm that there is at least a little difference between the 2.

What having 8GB of ram will really help with on performance is when you run out of memory. For example, while editing video my computer humms right allong... until I run out of ram, at which point everything stops because everything starts running as a page file on the HDD. This means, in my case, that all data over 4GB goes from a glorious 3.2GB/s, down to my HDD's 120MB/s, or worse when reading and writing at the same time. Some new games will take more than 4GB of memory when on high settings, and they will only take more as time goes on, which could leave you vulnerable to performance crushing bottlenecks.

 

[buzznut]

I have not heard vista and 7 X64 can address more than 3.25GB ram. I've always heard that is the limit for 32bit systems. Even Linux/Unix.

One way to check would be to go into your system properties and see how much ram is listed. Bet it says something like 3.25 GB.

I have actually heard of articles showing that despite this issue of addressing the memory, there is actually performance differences in 32 bit systems that have more than 3+ gigs of ram. I can't explain the technicals, but I do know that more ram is always better than less.

I've also heard that win7 can and will use as much ram as you throw at it. As mentioned above, it may not be a very tangible benefit but worth it to me. But going from 2gigs to 4 is going to be an eye-opener. You WILL tell the difference.

To me the best reason to get 8 gigs vs 4 right now is price per gigabyte. Also, 4gb density seems to do well as far as latency and timings are concerned. You'll notice that 8 gig modules usually are 10 or 11 CL.

I moved from 4 gigs to 8 for one very important reason and that is so I do not need my system cache on my SSD, where real state is vitally important. I moved my cache to my 1TB drive, but I doubt if I've ever used it with 8 gigs of ram. But really, Win8 is right around the corner which will be better optimized for 4 cores or more and certainly larger amounts of ram will be accessible as well.

So regarding ram density between 2 GB sticks and 4GB, performance is pretty much the same. You can get good timings and latency with both. In my case the two 4GB modules work best because my heatsink blocks two slots for higher fitting ram modules. Of course I'll have to get some low profile modules if I want 16GB. Which I do!

Performance benefits of the 64 bit OS are also less tangible than other aspects. I can tell you that a lot of software is still not 64 bit ready. I've tried several 64 bit web browsers for instance, and they always crash and some pages are not viewable, etc--Just not ready for primetime. The main benefit with the current state of software is the ability to access more ram. Seem silly? You need a 64 bit OS to use more ram, but the main benefit of said OS is buying more hardware.
ugh

 

[o1die]

Yeah, you can disable page filing in the security section with 8 gb and save precious space on your ssd.

 

[assassinsat]

ok so a ram upgrade it is. I don't think i'd ever have a prob with unsupported software. i don't use much software. my machine is for gaming only. i don't think games will be unsupported. will they?

and what is this CL that is listed in every ram? and what would happen if i put in a 2GB 1600MHz stick alongside my already present 1333Mhz ram? will that cause any probs?

I really can't afford 8GB so i'll stick with 4GB. can anyone list the best option out of the 3 i've listed?
Corsair XMS3 1600 Mhz CL9 DDR3
Corsair Vengeance 1600 Mhz CL9 DDR3
Corsair Dominator 1600 Mhz CL9 DDR3 kit