My first question is would ram be faster with four sticks of 2GB vs two sticks of 4GB? I heard that smaller amounts of memory can get accessed faster. Is that true? Both sets of ram I'm looking at have all the same specs except for the size. Price difference is $30 more for the four sticks of 2GB. Plus, the four sticks would be blue, and I think four blue sticks would look way cooler than two red sticks (but thats just ascetics). My second question is that both these sticks (both g.skill) say they are designed for the 2nd gen of intel cpus, but I'm building an AMD machine. Should I be worried about this? Should I choose some ram that is designed for AMD? and if so, are there any brands that are designed for AMD? Links to the ram in question on newegg: 2 x 4GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231455 2 x (2 x 2GB) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231474
Hi, I have heard the same thing that smaller amounts of the RAM would perform better. I think its because with 4 sticks of ram you are able to transmit more data than with just 2. The data paths are only so wide and can only transmit so much data at once, so 2 sticks would not be able to transmit as much data as 4 sticks can during the same amount of time across the data path. Not sure about the second part of your question, the RAM may have been designed optimally to work with intel cpu's, but should still be able to work with AMD processors. It may just perform better with an intel chipset because it was designed with that in mind.
Cool, it sounds like i should go with 4 smaller sticks, but my only question now is if 8gb is enough to future proof my pc? From what I've heard, 8gb is more than enough for games and apps (photo editing, video editing, 3d modeling, ect). Plus, ram is easy to replace, so im not too worried about it. But let say, would I see is difference in performance between 8GB and 16GB?
Hi, From everything I have read anything over 4gbs at this point in time will not help with gaming, as most games are not designed to take advantage of all that extra ram. However, I can say for sure that it helps with 3d applications, as before when I used zbrush my computer used to max out at around 5 million polygons, but now that I have 8 gbs I've gotten up to 12 million polygons total count so it definitely has helped with that. It should also help with video editing processing and rendering, as can mulitple cpu cores help with rending in maya and lightwave. You will probably see some improvement jumping from 8gbs to 16gbs, but I think the application has to be designed to take advantage of the extra memory. I am not sure how much of a performance you will see, but I bet there will be at least a small amount. I think 8gbs would be plenty, but if there is a specific application you are wondering about, you may want to google it just to see if anyone else has benefitted from the extra ram.
