(Originally posted by BabyBalla)
 
Memory Ram Explained

What is it?
RAM or Random access memory is a location where codes are being loaded and departures any time when you execute a program. For an example when you load firefox everything you need is loaded into the ram. For it to operate. When you exit the program it leave the ram making room for you next program. Having more ram is an good advantage for those people who do a lot or some multi tasking.

What is the different between SDRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3/GDDR3/GDDR4/GDDR5/

Speed.

SDRAM is the slowest out of all the ones listed above. Compare to DRAM its still slower but what is the different between the two was the mass bandwidth SDRAM created which made it very popular
DDR/DDR2/DDR3 is a upgrade version of SDRAM DDR introduced Double write cycle, SDRAM write and reads one bit at a time while DDR writes 2 and reads 2 bits at a time, DDR2 writes and reads 4 bits, DDR3 writes and reads 8bits This technology increases bandwidth on the ram dynamically.
GDDR3/GDDR4/GDDR5 Is ment for video cards, These run on the same concept as DDR


How to I know enough is enough?
It depends on what you do. Here my chart on what i think enough is enough, you may disagreed.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5142/chartvtq.png%3C/a%3E%3C/font%3E

Average user Refers to people who aren't  tech savy, Primary uses Reading the news, Checking there email, Visiting Social networking sites.
Multi-tasker Refers to people who Haves a couple of things running in the background, Primary uses media player, Web associated actives, Instant Messaging programs
Video Editor Refers to people who Edits Video
Enthusiast refers to people who runs benchmarks, wanting to squeeze every mhz out of their system

What about ram speeds?

Faster the ram, means its has much more bandwidth, more bandwidth allows more information to get to the CPU, Having a fast CPU but slow ram causes a Bottleneck. Which is a fancy word for a traffic jam.

Timing

• RAS - Row Address Strobe or Row Address Select

     

• CAS - Column Address Strobe or Column Address Select

              -It controls the amount of time in cycles between sending a reading command and the time to act on it. From the beginning of the CAS to the end of the CAS is the latency. The lower the time of these in cycles, the higher the memory  performance.

• tRAS - Active to precharge delay; this is the delay between the precharge and activation of a row

               - The amount of time between a row being activated by precharge and deactivated. A row cannot be deactivated until tRAS has completed. The lower this is, the faster the performance, but if it is set too low, it can cause data corruption by deactivating the row too soon.

• tRCD - RAS to CAS Delay; the time required between RAS and CAS access

               - Is the amount of time in cycles for issuing an active command and the read/write commands.

• tCL - (or CL) CAS Latency

• tRP - RAS Precharge; the time required to switch from one row to the next row, for example, switch internal memory banks

             -This is the minimum time between active commands and the read/writes of the next bank on the memory module.

• tCLK – ClocK; the length of a clock cycle

• Command Rate - the delay between Chip Select (CS), or when an IC is selected and the time commands can be issued to the IC

• Latency - The time from when a request is made to when it is answered; the total time required before data can be written to or read from the memory

Tighter timing will led to more bandwidth This will help from you computer speeds as far as launching programs and a bit when running them. A person who does a lot of Video editing/gamer/multi-tasker may want to consider Fast and tight timing ram, While the Average user may just want to save the some money and buy slower and looser ram.





< Message edited by BabyBalla -- 7/18/2009 2:14:01 PM >

rlynn23

Nice post with lot's of good info!Thank you R.J.!

why thank you :) I need to update this thread. Since the Core i7 are out. 

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5142/chartvtq.png <-- proper link. 

babyballa

rlynn23

Nice post with lot's of good info!Thank you R.J.!

why thank you :) I need to update this thread. Since the Core i7 are out. 

Thank you because this was good info for many people and I do not own an i7 so for now the i7 info is not too important.

helpful in a couple places.  any plan on when the i7 guide will be put up? (no rush, just curious)

Nice work and thanks for the repost.

good information for sure. thanks for it.

WOW - and the award for latest back from the grave thread goes to.....
 
 

candle_86
little outdated, these days for average joe 2gb is a minimum, 4gb is recommended, multitasker wants 4gb min and 8 recomended and enthusiats use 8gb and 16gb can come in handy

I don't go any less than 16gb's.

candle_86
little outdated, these days for average joe 2gb is a minimum, 4gb is recommended, multitasker wants 4gb min and 8 recomended and enthusiats use 8gb and 16gb can come in handy

actually 4GB is minimum as just running Windows 8.1 x64 with no other program I get ram usage about 1.8GB

Thanks for the concise RAM information OP.

Kryptonite787
There are also advantages that you use with your RAM (Random Access Memory). RAM creates virtual memory which 

• memory that appears to exist as main storage although most of it is supported by data held in secondary storage, transfer between the two being made automatically as required.
• If you have lots of RAM the more virtual memory you will get within a partition thus can be taken advantage of techniques such as memory compression, or page filing within the RAM's channel. You can also use this technique in virtualization where you can assign the amount of RAM being used to deploy an operating system. This technique is very useful especially when working in virtual environments while boosting performance.
  
  Note: Trying page filing on the operating system itself will hurt the kernel because you're limiting the amount of resource for the applications thus will result memory errors, and crashes.

I like RAM-Disk for ultimate speed - makes SSDs look SLOW.

good info. thank you

Cool GTX
My LINK below is a GOOD read; it is also more current, with RAM performance information.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell/10
 
Thanks Squall_Rinoa86 for sharing this link in my other post asking for Help choosing my RAM.

Thanks for posting that here for others.

Thanks for the post!