Is 4GB of RAM Enough

[100Coogn]

Vraciu, it's your call.
Your MOBO will not support anything larger than 4GB RAM.
Build your own Rig. (I know you've heard that a hundred times.)  It's worth it..

  Hook it up bro.   

Coogan

[Bizman]

Vraciu, did you notice my question about Windows Update on page 1? In a dual core system like yours the issue takes 50% of CPU, constantly, until it's fixed.

I noticed a remarkable difference between 4 and 8 GB on my system, DualCore and Windows7 as well.

[Skuzzy]

pagefile report in dxdiag is always (and has always been) virtual memory use.

Yes, that is true, but you said the "Page File" value was as follows, physical memory + pagefile, not pagefile alone. which is not accurate.  Or you did not correctly describe your intent.

Just some side advice: Don't mess with the page file in the latest versions of windows. Always leave it on auto. Games will crash if you set it too small.

Creating a fixed size page file always improves performance as it keeps the page file from being broken up and spread all over the file system.  It also helps by reducing the fragmentation of the file system.

The trick is to use twice the system RAM space for the page file.  If you run out of page file space then your computer needs more physical RAM.  I place a page file on each drive.  Some will say it is overkill and it probably is, but Windows 7 uses the page file on the last selected hard drive, if available.

Moving the page file off drive the boot drive, is also a good idea.

[Denniss]

Twice the system RAM for swapfile file is often too large unless you have a system with tiny amounts of RAM (2-4GB). To really get an existing swapfile in one large file you have to disable it first, reboot and then set it to desired size (Min = Max size), not required for a freshly set up swapfile on a new drive.
One should not set the swapfile on a second partition of your main HDD .

The problem with the swapfile nowadays is permanent usage, on Win9x it could be converted to be used if physical RAM was almost filled. That's why I prefer more RAM over having any fomr of swapfile. And if some strange programs needs one it's either moved to a virtual machine or a rather small swapfile is placed on a SSD.

[Skuzzy]

Twice the size is large.  It is overkill, but it costs nothing more that some drive space and it guarantees never to be too little.  Important when using a fixed swap file size.

In my person computer, I have seen swap usage upwards to 20GB while having 10GB of free system RAM due to how aggressive Windows had gotten about paging out data not being used.  Not uncommon when editing large video projects.

Note: Windows 10 introduced compression into the system RAM space.  This has changed how swap space is being used.

The system will reboot when you want to create a fixed size swap file as the fixed size swap file requires contiguous disk space.  Yes, it is best to set that up when you install the operating system.  If that is not an option, then removing extraneous files, and defragging the drive is the next best option before creating a fixed swap file.

[Vraciu]

Where do I set this?

[Vraciu]

Vraciu, it's your call.
Your MOBO will not support anything larger than 4GB RAM.
Build your own Rig. (I know you've heard that a hundred times.)  It's worth it..

  Hook it up bro.   

Coogan

I’ve done it before.   Just need to figure out what to get. 

[Vraciu]

Vraciu, did you notice my question about Windows Update on page 1? In a dual core system like yours the issue takes 50% of CPU, constantly, until it's fixed.

I noticed a remarkable difference between 4 and 8 GB on my system, DualCore and Windows7 as well.

No, I missed it. (Or else it didn’t register.)  Let me go back and read it. 

Edit in: Got it.   Let me go look.  I ran an update yesterday, fwiw.  It says everything is current. 

[Bizman]

Thought so, there's been quite a lot of information here. If you could run Windows Update without any issues, you don't suffer from the issue I described.

[Vraciu]

Thought so, there's been quite a lot of information here. If you could run Windows Update without any issues, you don't suffer from the issue I described.

I actually had issues.   Had to go in and trick it to run.   Stopped the service.  Deleted the update history folder.   Restarted the service.   What a nuisance.  So, you obviously prompted me to fix something that was messed up.  Thank you. 

[Vraciu]

What about something like this?  And what does TURBO mean?   I remember in the 286/386 days the TURBO BUTTON!     Please tell me it's not that. 

Board + CPU + Memory:

Six Core, 16GB RAM ($515) - https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3706535
Quad Core, 8GB RAM ($372) - https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3646860
Dual Core, 8GB RAM ($279) -  https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.3136162



I've been out of the computer build game for so long all of this is Greek to me now.  I'm guessing I should look for a quad-core if I can find one in my price range.

[Bizman]

That i5 combo is funny, a 7600K would add a lot of single core performance for not too much more money.

Notice that the new Kaby Lake processors only support Windows 10! So if you want to use your existing Win7, check for compatibility!

[Meatwad]

I remember those turbo buttons, pressing one took the PC from 12 to 18 mhz 

[Vraciu]

That i5 combo is funny, a 7600K would add a lot of single core performance for not too much more money.

Notice that the new Kaby Lake processors only support Windows 10! So if you want to use your existing Win7, check for compatibility!

D'oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[Denniss]

Actually it's M$ who deliberately sabotaged Win7/8.1 so computer with new generation CPU's do work but won't find updates anymore. Same happens on AMD Ryzen.