Introduction
This application note will explore the benefits of using 8GB of DDR3 system memory in a dual-channel DDR3-based PC, such as an
Intel Core i5 or Core i7 (Lynnfield) system, or an AMD AM3 Phenom
II PC. It will show how the additional RAM allows for a snappier and more responsive PC, with performance improvements of up to 186% versus a PC with 4GB of RAM. And it will also show how adding more RAM allows you to change the way in which you use your PC, by allowing you to do more. This includes running more applications (and never needing to close them), working with more data, and even running another
virtualized operating system. For example, you could run a virtual Ubuntu Linux operating system as a pure email / home admin PC, leaving your Windows installation free for office duties, or just as a pure gaming system.
These benefits will be discussed in more detail during the course of this application note, but a summary of the performance results and benefits is shown below.
Read the rest of the Application Note after the jump.
Performance Results Summary
Summary of benefits to using 8GB or more
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Changing the game with 8GB
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Benefit
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| Windows caches more data into RAM |
Applications are more responsive and Windows feels generally faster and
snappier with no delay switching between applications |
| Less / no reliance on the pagefile on the hard disk drive |
The storage drive is the slowest component in your PC. Even an SSD is at least an order of magnitude slower than RAM! |
| Leave your applications running all the time |
Everything is immediately available when you need it |
| Work with more and larger photo an video files |
Edit longer HD video clips and work with more high-resolution digital photos, without the PC slowing down to a crawl |
| Sleep and Resume faster |
Don't shut down your PC, just save the session into memory so that you can resume from where you left off. 8GB makes this process faster |
| Have your favorite game running in a Window |
Need a break? Just mouse over to WoW
or Guild Wars for 15 minutes, or have a few rounds of Counter-Strike |
| Virtualize another operating system without needing to close any other applications |
Use Ubuntu Linux for all your home email / finance / administration, and have a pure Windows OS gaming or office system. Or just try out different operating systems for fun! |
| Make better use of multiple monitors |
With so many applications able to run at once, it makes sense to spread them out across multiple monitors. |
Background
Over the last 12-18 months, assisted by the wider adoption of 64-bit operating systems and the increasing memory usage of applications and games, enthusiasts and gamers have accepted 4GB or 6GB of memory as the base
level for a modern PC.
DDR3 has also taken over from DDR2 as the memory of choice now that Intel has moved completely to DDR3 on its Core i5 and Core i7 (Lynnfield) CPUs with dual-channel DDR3 memory controllers, and AMD has made the transition to DDR3 with Socket AM3 Phenom II processors.
The increased number of platforms that support DDR3 has also helped to drive down the cost of DDR3 memory, and as a result consumers have the option to install even higher quantities of memory. Installing 8GB or 12GB of DDR3 memory would have been a luxury 18 months ago, but these larger memory densities, and potentially even higher densities, are now affordable.
8GB versus 4GB Real World Performance Testing
To investigate the benefits of using 8GB of memory as opposed to 4GB, we built a test PC based around an AMD Phenom II 710 Socket AM3 processor and AMD790FX motherboard, which supports dual-channel DDR3 memory. Although we used an AMD platform, these benefits apply equally to any dual-channel DDR3 platform, such as Intel Core 2, Core i5 and dual-channel Core i7 (Lynnfield) processors.
We then recreated a typical desktop home/office environment, using a selection of popular office and multimedia applications. This Typical Application
Set was workable when using 4GB of RAM, so the aim of the benchmarks is examine whether extra memory headroom can provide performance benefits even in situations where more than 4GB is not a requirement. By recreating a typical desktop environment we can show how an application would perform in the real world. To maintain a consistent test environment, the system was rebooted and the application set reloaded after each test.
The benchmark results show that installing extra memory can provide significant performance benefits, even in situations where the overall memory usage does not exceed 4GB. Installing more memory allows the operating system to store more data in RAM, rather than relying on the pagefile on the storage drive. This makes applications respond more quickly, and provides access to your data, photos and video files without delay. Many of the benefits cannot be shown in benchmarks, and are simply the result of greater
responsiveness when switching between applications and performing tasks.
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