bigger Hamsters and how much Ram?

[Shands]

Systems are bigger, they have more capacity, and are much faster....So I was curious...I recall reading an article in an older "Windows" magazine by Mike Elgan (then
editor of the magazine) concerning the amount of ram needed to run Windows (can't recall if it was Win95 or Win98) in its sweet spot so to speak. It was a quite a while ago and RAM prices were a lot higher than they are now...

My question is this...with prices as low as they are now and the prospect of even slightly lower prices in the next month, how much is to much ram? I am going to be ordering all my components for my next upgrade soon, and while I do not have an unlimited budget, I could quite easily drop
1024mb into the MB (either the Iwill kk266r
or the Abit KT7A raid) But I will not be doing video editing or CAD stuff, so will I see any gain by putting 512mb over a single
256mb stick? It will be strictly a home use computer with a 1.33,266fsb Tbird cpu

[SPEEDO]

Hello Shands

I have the KT7A-Raid board with 1.2 AMD Tbird Proc.
768 Meg. Ram
I am using Win ME which likes to use memory, Right now it is using 211 meg of physical Memory!

With memory being so low priced right now I would say fill er up.

Good Luck

Speedo

[Warthog]

I went from 128mb PC133 to 384mb (added 256mb) in Win98.

Didn't notice a darn difference. If anything, it seemed to slow me down, don't ask why. I think the sweet spot is 256. Meaning, the if you add RAM after that, the increase in speed is smaller (much smaller, IMO) than if you, say, went from 64mb to 128mb (BIG difference, seen that).

So, unless you have Win2k, don't have more than 256mb if you don't need it.

Warthog

[eagle1]

Yeah.. the real benefits you gain in Win98 when adding Ram is by updating from 32mb or 64 megs! I went from 128 to 256 and didn't notice a thing.!
It doesn't scale too well if you add alot of Ram.!
However, Win2k and Linux OS'es does take advantage of more Ram. !

[SPEEDO]

Oh i'm so sorry I didn't relize that he was using Win 98 by reading his post!

I must be losing my ability to fathom what I read!!!

[Philip1952]

I just tell people to set up system monitor to check for unused memory and swap file size. Then run the most intensive program on the computer. Check the system monitor. If you see unused memory above 30 megs and little or no swap file used. Then you have enough memory.
(Or add 64 meg above the amount of swap file used). I try to have 30 meg free at all times with the most intensive work it will do. Playing games on line is one of the better tests for this.
I use this formula on any win98 machines. More ram is nice. But why buy something if your system doesn't use or need it.

[newbie~wan]

"system monitor" as in norton or something like that? I am building a machine and plan on using win98, so I need to decide how much ram. I was planning on 256 mb pc2100 ddr

[gfunkmartin]

I would think 256 would be plenty in most Win 98 machines. What's the limit on how much memory win9x can address? I thought it was 512, but I could be mistaken.

[The Beav]

With ram as cheap as it is, I would go at least 512. That way you would have it for future upgrades...... Win2K or XP.

Crucial/Micron 256 meg @ $40 on their website with free shipping right now.

Cheers!

[Warthog]

My question is why would RAM have any reason to rise? As technology advances, it should only go down or stay around the same. Computer hardware doesn't usually rise in price unless there's some Taiwan earthquake... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Warthog