Ram Question for HD HTPC

[tvmaster2]

If I have budget constraints, what are peoples opinions on RAM and it's variations for HD recording and playback with Sage and what will likely be a Gigabyte 785 board (hopefully using IGP).

4 gigs of DDR2 800, or 2 gigs DDR3 1066? And please recommend away based on your systems.

I guess the big question I have is 4 gigs of ram necessary for a Sage HD HTPC.

[stanger89]

No 4GB isn't necessary. In fact it's more likely to cause problems since I think some Hauppauge drivers don't like having 4GB installed.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by stanger89

No 4GB isn't necessary. In fact it's more likely to cause problems since I think some Hauppauge drivers don't like having 4GB installed.

really? that's good to know. Do you feel the DDR3 has any real advantage over the DDR2?

[SWKerr]

I had 4gb in a HTPC for awhile and moved 2gb to another machine and could not tell a difference. Unless you are going to do something else 2gb is plenty.

I just built a Phenom X3 710 system with a GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM motherboard. I bought 4gb DDR2 800 because it was discounted with the combo at Newegg. I had been buying DDR2 1066 lately but it was a good deal. I figured I would steal some faster RAM from anther build and put the cheap stuff in an older box. Long story short I built the new machine with the DDR2 800 intending to switch later but I was able to unlock the the cpu to four cores and overclock it to around 3.0ghz without any any tinkering or problems. The RAM stayed.

This was in my main desktop PC. I would guess that unless you are planning on doing some heavy overclocking that you would never notice the difference especially in a HTPC. I would not use the DDR3 unless you had a motherboard that required it.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

really? that's good to know. Do you feel the DDR3 has any real advantage over the DDR2?

From a speed standpoint, DDR3 has limited advantages of DD2 (it isn't like if you drop a Core2duo onto a board that has DDR3 that it is going to run like an i7). With that said if I were buying a new system today, I would only go DDR3 just to future proof my system and DDR3 isn't that much more expensive anymore than DD2.

As for 2GB vs 4GB, as already stated, several of Hauppauge's older cards (anything analog only), can't be run on systems with 4GB so I keep my system at 3GB.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

From a speed standpoint, DDR3 has limited advantages of DD2 (it isn't like if you drop a Core2duo onto a board that has DDR3 that it is going to run like an i7). With that said if I were buying a new system today, I would only go DDR3 just to future proof my system and DDR3 isn't that much more expensive anymore than DD2.

As for 2GB vs 4GB, as already stated, several of Hauppauge's older cards (anything analog only), can't be run on systems with 4GB so I keep my system at 3GB.

and do you find any advantage to dual one-gig sticks vs. a single 2 gig stick?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

and do you find any advantage to dual one-gig sticks vs. a single 2 gig stick?

I always recommend matched pairs. While I haven't benchmarked matched pairs vs non-matched pairs in awhile, the last time I did it was about 10% increase in overall system speed. Now is this really necessary in an HTPC, no but since it is usually about the same price as a single stick (sometimes cheaper comparing 2 - 1GB sticks to 1 - 2GB stick) it just seems like a no-brainer.

I am currently using 2 - 1GB sticks and 2 -512mb sticks in my server to get me to 3GB running in dual channel mode.

[freedml]

I always felt like I got taken if I tried to 'future-proof' any computer. Buy what it needs now. By the time you can take advantage of the upgraded RAM (or whatever) it will already be surpassed by the specs of new machine you buy.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

I always recommend matched pairs. While I haven't benchmarked matched pairs vs non-matched pairs in awhile, the last time I did it was about 10% increase in overall system speed. Now is this really necessary in an HTPC, no but since it is usually about the same price as a single stick (sometimes cheaper comparing 2 - 1GB sticks to 1 - 2GB stick) it just seems like a no-brainer.

I am currently using 2 - 1GB sticks and 2 -512mb sticks in my server to get me to 3GB running in dual channel mode.

Thanks for the info - sorry for the delay, I had to go to Vegas to see Cheap Trick do Sgt. Pepper's. I guess I'll look for dual sticks of 1gb for now, and then add 2 512's later.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Thanks for the info - sorry for the delay, I had to go to Vegas to see Cheap Trick do Sgt. Pepper's. I guess I'll look for dual sticks of 1gb for now, and then add 2 512's later.

You probably won't even need the 2 512's. When I originally built my Sage server, I built it with 2 512mb sticks and then added 2 1GB sticks. So I figured, what else am I going to do with 2 512mb sticks? So I just left them in. My dedicated server rarely uses more than 1.2GB of RAM at any one time (even with my JAVA Heap size set to approx 750mb).

Edit: I should point out I am running XP for my server so that does help keep the overall system memory usage down compared to Vista or 7