Dan Farrell wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jul 2007 21:35:22 -0700 > "Julian Simioni" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> On 7/9/07, Dan Farrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> Agreed, of course, but one nice thing about extra ram that it might >>> be pertinent to mention is that it can be used to cache and >>> significantly reduce hard drive I/O once the cache is primed. >>> >> I just upgraded my system from 1GB to 2GB of DDR2 ... [ & ] I honestly >> have noticed no difference in speed while using Gentoo, which is by >> far my primary OS. I'm sure a detailed analysis would show at least >> slight improvement in some cases, but it probably isn't worth the >> upgrade. >> > > Yeah, my desktop (up 23 days, so cache has had time to fill) has only > managed to cache about half a gig worth of stuff, leaving 200 megs or > thereabouts unused. . Most instances of applications I run are the same > hd data, like a thousand firefoxes, xterms, mail, etc. So I think the > 'significant' part only kicks in if you run lots of different > programs. I wouldn't expect my desktop to go any faster either, but I > would expect a little speedup if I were running a heavier window > manager or a full-blown DE like gnome or kde. > > It might make a bigger difference if you were running 3d games or > something, I guess. > >
I have had 1Gb on here for a long time and usually updatedb fills up cache but other than that I don't use it all. I did once when I opened about 400 pics with Gimp though. I use KDE and I do quite a bit of pic stuff as far as storing them. I wouldn't spend the extra money on any more memory for mine. I just don't see where any more would do any good. Like others I think it depends on what you are doing. If you do video editing or CAD or something then you may can use the extra memory then. Other than that, just watch what is being used and get more when you need it. Oh, I run folding on here a lot and I get bigger units to work on since I have more ram. My other rigs with a lot less memory get smaller units. That helps some I guess. Let us know what you get in the end and how things work out. Show us some speed tests or something. ;-) Dale :-) :-)
