Operating System: Windows 7
Processor/CPU: Intel Core i5 2450m
Video Card/GPU: Nvidia GT540m
Memory/RAM: 4 gigs
I'll be getting that laptop and I was wondering if it'd be worth it to upgrade the ram to 6 gigs for Dolphin?
Is it worth it for Dolphin? Not really, in my opinion. Is it worth it for other types of applications? Maybe, depends if what you're doing needs it. In Dolphin, might only see marginal performance gains when upgrading RAM. The CPU and GPU play a bigger role in it's emulation.
No. There won't be any improvements at all.
Definitely not. 4 gigabytes is a LOT of data and should be plenty for anything you throw at it.
(06-17-2012, 08:16 AM)Garteal Wrote: [ -> ]No. There won't be any improvements at all.
According to Squall, there should be some improvement with faster RAM, but as NV countered, the data's just not there to prove it. It might be the case that there is indeed an improvement, but one so slight as to be entirely negligible when viewing overall performance. The OP never mentioned if the upgrade was for faster RAM or just straight up larger RAM, but in either case it's not worth paying extra to experiment.
Shonumi Wrote:According to Squall, there should be some improvement with faster RAM, but as NV countered, the data's just not there to prove it. It might be the case that there is indeed an improvement, but one so slight as to be entirely negligible when viewing overall performance. The OP never mentioned if the upgrade was for faster RAM or just straight up larger RAM, but in either case it's not worth paying extra to experiment.
Yes he did. He said nothing about upgrading to faster ram. He said he was upgrading from 4GB of ram to 6GB of ram:
Quote:I'll be getting that laptop and I was wondering if it'd be worth it to upgrade the ram to 6 gigs for Dolphin?
That way he worded that implies that he's buying an OEM laptop and choosing between 4GB or 6GB.
I think you misintepreted what I posted, I thought the "straight up" part would have been enough of a clue, but doesn't look it. When I said "the upgrade" I was directly refering to the 4GB to 6GB upgrade the OP mentioned in the first post. What I was trying to convey was that the OP never distinguished if the RAM upgrade was purely for larger capacity or if faster RAM speeds were also part of the deal.
The only thing the OP definitively told us was that he was considering getting more RAM. I agree, it sounds like some OEM offer, in which case it's probably only for more RAM of the same speed, but you know how I am about making assumptions (e.g. I try to avoid them).
In theory faster RAM should help (more RAM won't really help anything with dolphin [assuming you have enough in the first place
]) with EFB to RAM, but NV says there is no proof, and I haven't tried so yeah :p
RAM is going to be 1333MHZ. Intel considers anything faster as overclocking and DRAM exchange says 1066MHZ isn't any cheaper.
Its going to be much cheaper to upgrade it yourself so go with 4GB.
More ram = more fluid loading of applications thanks to there being plenty of more ram to cache
Faster ram is only really worth it on CPU's who's memory controller only does 1 cache read every cycle