When I originally installed Windows 7 64-bit, I had 4GB in my machine. While the performance improvements I saw were noticable and appreciated, it was clear that Windows 7 was more than happy to consume all the RAM I could possibly throw at it:
At the urging of Grant Gochanuer (happy owner of 12GB of RAM), I went ahead and upgraded the RAM in my machine from 4GB to 8GB.
After a full day of use, Windows 7 Resource Monitor looks like this:
While the performance difference is not night and day for me, I will say that the first thing you notice is that the more RAM you give Windows 7, the less often it seems to hit the hard drive.
I have some fairly monsterous Firefox working profiles and Java IDE configurations that by all accounts brought my old Windows XP and Vista installs to their knees on loadup. Now with 8GB in Windows 7, my disk blinks lazily along while everything stays completely responsive and whatever I’m loading fires up in half the time (give or take).
I will say one huge data point that used to drive me crazy on my old Windows install was when I fired up my working Firefox profile for blogging — I maintain 10 or so tabs at all times in this working profile, each site a Gmail account or WordPress administrative interface along with AJAX traffic analysis tools — pretty much a worst case as far as JavaScript/Memory load times go. On my old installs of Windows loading up this profile could take anywhere from 10-20 seconds depending on what my computer was currently doing. Now it seems regardless of what I’m doing (Java IDE + VMWare for example), the profile comes up in about 6-8 seconds and doesn’t seem to trash my hard drive anymore.
Windows 7 is becoming a must-have upgrade for me and anyone else willing to throw some serious memory at it. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than an SSD and this 8GB upgrade only cost me $94.
“I will say that the first thing you notice is that the more RAM you give Windows 7, the less often it seems to hit the hard drive.”
Yeah, there’s a filesystem cache. Anything that has been read tries to stay in RAM until something better comes along. Most OS’s do this. I don’t really know how to compare the OS’s, I’ve just tweaked/observed the Solaris version of the fs cache.
Once Ext4 or btrfs gets stable in Linux, it’s really not going to matter. I/O seems to be the huge bottleneck these days and a copy on write filesystem has to be seen to be believed (ok maybe it’s not life changing …).
I can’t wait until Win7 released and I build a new system. I’m planning for an icore7 processor with 12 GB of RAM. If my budget allows.
Jigsaw,
Good call, like the 920 or something? $254 or so last time I checked, the reall sink-hole is the dang motherboards… but all in all a Core i7 920, Mobo + 12GB of RAM and GPU were right around $1k which I thought was pretty reasonable for a “pretty close to the top” performing computer.
Uh oh… If it’s going to be lagging on 4GB of RAM, it will NEVER run on my current computers, I already have trouble with Vista.
No more Windows for me.
It doesnt need 4gb of ram, hell even vista can run on 2 just fine. and what a concept…new software needing new hardware? with your mentality we should all be running ms dos.
It does not lag at 4GB’s of ram I run it on a laptop with 1GB of ram and it runs just fine also its a Celeron M 1.6GHZ and a 40GB HDD. Runs better than XP ever did on it.
well crap, i’ve run windows 7 on a test laptop with only 1gb ram and it ran perfectly fine for audio recording and powerpoint 2007 photoshop….
Sure it likes the extra ram it has in it now…
Specs were:
1.73GHz Pentium Dual-Core 2080
1GB Ram
533 FSB
120GB HDD…
@RaceCar: W7 will perform better than Vista.
I’m in the process of installing Windows 7 right now on my machine with 8GB of RAM. This will really be the first time I’ve used 64-bit Windows. Will I be in for any surprises as far as driver support is concerned? I remember that being reported as a big issue with 64-bit XP and Vista.
Tim,
Only because I don’t know the devices you’ll try and use, go ahead and assume you *will* run into some snags, just so you aren’t surprised. That being said, I had no driver issues with 64-bit Windows 7 but I *did* with Windows 2k3 64-bit years ago and Windows Vista 64-bit oddly enough — namely with installers that would crap out with “This operating system is not supported” because the installers would do stupid checks against the 32/64 and just die.
Oddly enough I didn’t run into any of those “technicality” type of issues in Windows 7 — everything literally just worked. So I want to prepare you for any hickups you have, but that being said, you will most likely have much better experience/luck with Windows 7 64-bit than Vista.
This is the first time I’ve done an exclusive 64-bit OS and not regretted it, I wouldn’t go back to 32-bit Windows 7 at this point.
So far so good. The biggest problem I encountered was the fault of my slow, old RAID controller. I ditched that, used the on-board RAID, and now it flies.
Well, America’s Army 3 doesn’t work (and only checks after it downloads and installs 4GB of data) but I never got to play it on Linux or Mac OS anyway so it’s not that big of a deal.
hahaha u suckers paid while I got mine for free … i just paid shipping and handling http://alturl.com/tgn7
uh, 8GB is way over the top for anyone except for a hardcore gamer – you can clearly see that 2,2GB RAM is *wasted* and I strongly doubt that Windows has used at least half of the 3,7GB Standby RAM.
for the triple channel intel CPUs (920+), 6GB is the optimum, for dual channel Lynnfield CPUs (i5, i7 860/860..) 4GB are more than enough and it does not make any sense to upgrade to 8GB NOW. Wait a year for the prices to drop – you won’t be needing 8GB so soon
asdf, I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment. I would just expand the use of “hardcore gamer” to be “hardcore computer user” — software development, video work, heavy image manipulation, video games, etc.
If you are just checking email, writing an occasional doc and playing Flash games, yea you are absolutely right, 4GB is fine, 6GB is great and no need to go higher.
Riyad, I play a lot of *new* games and they simply don’t need more than 4GB RAM. Yet.
I also recode a lot of videos and process my photos on my desktop with 4GB of RAM and windows 7. I AM a software developer and my business laptop has WinXP and 3GB RAM – and never had any swapping slowdowns.
For checking email, browsing the internet and using MS Office, you do not need more than 2GB RAM.
asdf, you might be missing my point here. I’m glad you currently aren’t compelled to put more than 4GB of ram into your machine, but I will categorically disagree with your implied assessment that there is no benefit to it.
Just with 6 instances of Chrome open, IntelliJ and Putty I’ve got 5GB of my 8GB of physical ram currently used.
The point being that Windows 7 *will use* as much RAM as you throw at it and generally provide a better experience.
The problem with this discussion we are currently having is that we aren’t defining “need”.
need == functionally — then no, you can probably get by with 1GB in Windows 7 and it will boot.
need == better user experience — then yes, the more the merrier. I don’t know how much of an increased user experience exists beyond 8GB right now, it depends heavily on what you do. If you have Photoshop open with a ton of heavy work going on, then you’d probably benefit.
To clarify, I’m disagreeing with you that *you* need more, it sounds like you are fine. I’m disagreeing that there is no perceivable benefit beyond 4GB — it might depend on what you do with your PC, but there is absolutely a perceivable benefit if you are a heavy computer user.
As for your last comment, basically an email/doc machine, definitely, 2GB would be sufficient. Sort of a classic “what would my parents do with a machine” use case there and I agree.
“Just with 6 instances of Chrome open, IntelliJ and Putty I’ve got 5GB of my 8GB of physical ram currently used.”
this is exactly the point you are not aware of – those 5GB are not really USED – windows (as well as any other modern OS) allocates loads of memory to pre-cache data from disk – to speed up loading of programs etc.
Those remaining 3GB of RAM that you call “free” are in fact “wasted”.
You are a huge moron.
asdf, I do not consider pre-cached application data wasted. It decreases load times, that is incredibly valuable to me.
I think we have fundamentally different views on what we think is “valuable use of RAM” so this disagreement will likely go on forever.
Let’s just say we have differing opinions on the subject and leave it at that.
P.S.> “this is exactly the point you are not aware of” — you do know you’re making that statement on a post I wrote about Windows 7 pre-caching right? I love it!
I never called memory used for pre-caching wasted – I said memory NOT USED for pre-caching is wasted.
P.S.> your point ??? Your post makes it very clear you are merely an average computer user and not an expert on OS level memory management – otherwise you would have never written “it was clear that Windows 7 was more than happy to CONSUME all the RAM I could possibly throw at it”..
Pretty sure asdf was just upset at how you worded it. People keep bashing windows when really its the best thats out there for people that don’t want to learn how to do any type of coding/script reading. I personally never had any problems with vista, I just had to do a few workarounds which is like pulling teeth for other people.
Perhaps if you had said “it was clear that Windows 7 actually utilizes the additional ram making it better than an already amazing experience” haha.
Fascinating to read all the to-and-fro arguing, over ram requirements, actually I found pulling teeth quite easy,but then, I’m a retired dentist!!
I have W7 on i5 and 4G RAM. It runs amazingly fast for my use.
I have a VAIO F11 core i7 , 4GB , Windows 7 Pro 64Bit
I have many heavy programs like VS2008 , SQL server Developer 2008, ARCGIS Desktop , ArcGIS Server , Photoshop CS3 , . . . .
they runs superfast