4gb or 6?

mordeith

I posted this in the laptop forum but no reply so trying here.
Basically I intend ordering an XPS Studio 16. The question is whether I should go for 6gb or 4gb. There's a €250 difference between the two so is it worth the price difference?
Thanks

AntiRip

All depends on usage. If you are into video editing then probably yes. For everyday use def no. It's not as if its going to be faster, more RAM is only good for multitasking or power hungry apps such as video editing etc.

Dey were Sooted

Go for the 4GB and upgrade the Ram yourself (for cheaper) in the future if you feel you need it ......

mordeith

Thanks for the replies. I will be doing some video editing but only family stuff. Nothing fancy or over 30 minutes in length. I think I might take the advice on getting the 4gb version and upgrading later if needed. As you say it that should prove to a cheaper option.
Mostly I'll be using it for audio production and some gaming, but nothing too high end. I'd have gone for the XPS 17 but is has no firewire or VGA output, both of which I require.

desaparecidos

4GB is plenty.

You will see no benefit with 6GB.

softdancomputer

If its an x32 OS, no point in going over 4Gb; if its a x64, go for 6Gb.

desaparecidos

softdancomputer wrote: »

If its an x32 OS, no point in going over 4Gb; if its a x64, go for 6Gb.

Pointless waste of money.

mordeith

softdancomputer wrote: »

If its an x32 OS, no point in going over 4Gb; if its a x64, go for 6Gb.

It is a 64 os but it doesn't seem like an extra 2gb is worth 250 euro.

Skerries

as others have said go with the 4gb and later on you can buy extra ram if you feel you'll need it which i doubt
Dell are very expensive for add-ons so buy cheaper ram from someone else and install if you have the slots free

softdancomputer

2 Gb of extra ram will make a difference in video and photo editing. If its make a real value for the money, its up to you.

mordeith

softdancomputer wrote: »

2 Gb of extra ram will make a difference in video and photo editing. If its make a real value for the money, its up to you.

I see that the extra RAM might make a difference but not at that price. Especially as I checked the DELL website and you can get a 4GB module of the same memory for €56! How they justify an extra €250 for 2gb is beyond me.

DarkDusk

When you go into the 4GB-6GB range onwards you will not see any difference unless you are a heavy user that does a lot of gaming or video editing. My friend has a PC (Alienware) with 12GB of RAM but then again it's only for gaming. However for even the everyday gamer (that plays games like crysis etc.) 6GB-8GB is plenty.
As for the price €250 is wayyyyy to expensive. Make sure it is DDR3 RAM aswell and the clock speeds because sometimes you can be tricked into getting a slowing speed module when you actually think it is faster. It's more about the clock speed than the amount of memory. 4GB of RAM at 1800Mhz is way faster than 6GB of RAM at 1000Mhz.
Hope this helps,
James.

Voodu Child

4GB is plenty for the average user. If you're only doing a bit of light video-editing, then I would say it is still plenty.

If you really want lots of RAM, €250 is too much to upgrade to 6GB. 8GB would probably set you back not much more than €100 on ebay. Give it a year or two and the price will be even lower. And then factor in the fact that you've still got the original 4GB to flog on adverts. €250 is madness.

marco_polo

DarkDusk wrote: »

When you go into the 4GB-6GB range onwards you will not see any difference unless you are a heavy user that does a lot of gaming or video editing. My friend has a PC (Alienware) with 12GB of RAM but then again it's only for gaming. However for even the everyday gamer (that plays games like crysis etc.) 6GB-8GB is plenty.
As for the price €250 is wayyyyy to expensive. Make sure it is DDR3 RAM aswell and the clock speeds because sometimes you can be tricked into getting a slowing speed module when you actually think it is faster. It's more about the clock speed than the amount of memory. 4GB of RAM at 1800Mhz is way faster than 6GB of RAM at 1000Mhz.
Hope this helps,
James.

No game that i know of would ever come even remotely close to using up 4GB of RAM so 6-8 is way overkill for a gamer.

Voodu Child wrote: »

4GB is plenty for the average user. If you're only doing a bit of light video-editing, then I would say it is still plenty.

If you really want lots of RAM, €250 is too much to upgrade to 6GB. 8GB would probably set you back not much more than €100 on ebay. Give it a year or two and the price will be even lower. And then factor in the fact that you've still got the original 4GB to flog on adverts. €250 is madness.

It is even cheaper than that again making the Dell price all the more outrageous, you can certainly pick up a 4Gb DDR3 kit for 40-45 at the moment.

Voodu Child

marco_polo wrote: »

It is even cheaper than that again making the Dell price all the more outrageous, you can certainly pick up a 4Gb DDR3 kit for 40-45 at the moment.

Well its a laptop so only two slots. Im looking at it from the perspective of buying 2x4GB DDR3 laptop ram which runs around €100. Then you get back €20 or €30 by selling the original 2x2GB on adverts, so the 'upgrade' to 8GB costs €70 odd.

Whereas the Dell price is €250 to upgrade from a 4GB spec to a 6GB spec.

DarkDusk

marco_polo wrote: »

No game that i know of would ever come even remotely close to using up 4GB of RAM so 6-8 is way overkill for a gamer.

Ya I know that but if you want to play a game like Crysis Warhead at extreme graphics with a €300+ graphics card with no glitches at all you need to go that bit further. I tested it out by taking out different amounts of RAM at a time to come to a conclusion. The game will work quite good with 3-4GB of RAM but it seems to use up any additional RAM that you have in your computer for better performance.

marco_polo

Voodu Child wrote: »

4GB is plenty for the average user. If you're only doing a bit of light video-editing, then I would say it is still plenty.

If you really want lots of RAM, €250 is too much to upgrade to 6GB. 8GB would probably set you back not much more than €100 on ebay. Give it a year or two and the price will be even lower. And then factor in the fact that you've still got the original 4GB to flog on adverts. €250 is madness.

Forgive me it appears I jumped feet first into a laptop thread without looking at the fine print.

marco_polo

DarkDusk wrote: »

Ya I know that but if you want to play a game like Crysis Warhead at extreme graphics with a €300+ graphics card with no glitches at all you need to go that bit further. I tested it out by taking out different amounts of RAM at a time to come to a conclusion. The game will work quite good with 3-4GB of RAM but it seems to use up any additional RAM that you have in your computer for better performance.

It would be extremely rare for a game to head north of 2GB of RAM usage (bar a memory leak) so I really don't see how any performance boost would be possible.

3GB vs 6GB vs 12GB
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264-3.html

desaparecidos

I think it's fair to say that north of 4GB of ram is for rampant consumerists and/or idiots.