1 GB @ 1T or 2GB @ 2T?

On an older system I have been running 2x512 PC3200 modules at 1T for quite some time. I recently upped the ram in another system, so now I have 2 more 512 meg sticks laying around. Now, I know that if I fill all 4 slots, my command rate is going to drop to 2T. My question is- will 2 gigs of ram at 2T actually be any better than 1 gig at 1T?

Most definitely yes, in most situations, granted it isn't REALLY old.

Guess it depends on what you're running on the system.

Ram was often becoming a problem on my old Barton 2500+ w/ only 1 gig using WinXP.

The ram is all identical, Corsair XMS Pro PC3200C2
it would go in a socket 939 Abit AV8 with an athlon64 3700+

Running older games like BF1942/vietnam/2, CS:S, UT2004 etc

cold_steel said:

On an older system I have been running 2x512 PC3200 modules at 1T for quite some time. I recently upped the ram in another system, so now I have 2 more 512 meg sticks laying around. Now, I know that if I fill all 4 slots, my command rate is going to drop to 2T. My question is- will 2 gigs of ram at 2T actually be any better than 1 gig at 1T?

Click to expand...

It depends on the application. 2GB at 2T would actually be slower]/i] than 1GB at 1T if Windows plus your running apps combined don't utilize more than 900-ish MB of physical RAM. On the other hand, any use which utilizes more than 900-ish MB of physical RAM would greatly benefit from the added RAM, even if it (over)loads the system's memory controller.

Yeah, thats what I was thinking... hrm. Anyone know a good way to monitor memory usage during a game? That way I could see how much is actually being used and make my decision that way

any other thoughts?

I use Riva Tuner's hardware monitor, but you can also check your peak memory usage in the Performance tab of the Task Manager. If I remember correctly, check the Commit Charge (K) section. Chop off the last three digits and you are looking at MB of RAM. Total is the current usage, Limit is the total available (which I think includes your pagefile), and Peak is the most RAM used since the last boot. If your Peak value is less that your Total Physical RAM installed after gaming for a while you should be fine.

While googling for a page explaining all that better I ran into this, which looks pretty cool, but there seems to be 'some assembly required'.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/107278/track_memory_usage_in_windows_xp.html

Hope this helps. Good luck.