Hello all,

I am a very happy editor working on Vista x64 with Premiere CS4 on my wonderful system recommended by both Mike McCarthy and Harm Millard over a year ago (8 core 3GHz X5450 xeons - it never fails and I love it).

I am about to go to Windows 7 x64, will eventually have Adobe CS5 x64 and am planning to go from 8GB of ram to 16.

Is that a good idea?

I know as much about RAM as I know about women. So I need some advice again.

The RAM I currently have (8 sticks of) is this: Kingston KVR667D2D8F5/1GI

Judging by the Kingston site, this (http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/modelsinfo.asp?SysID=42321&mfr=Supermicro&model=X7DWA&search_type=&root=us&LinkBack=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kingston.com&Sys=42321-Supermicro-X7DWA-N+Motherboard&distributor=0&submit1=Search) is all the variety of their RAM that will suit my motherboard (Supermicro X7DWA-N).

But I don't know one from the other or what the appropriate upgrade is. There is only one 16GB kit listed with the same model number prefix as my current ram, but its price is more than double the price of the comperable 8GB kit. What gives?

And am I taking an unneccesary step? Perhaps worst of all is that this type of RAM (FB-DIMMs) is pretty hard to track down over here.

John,

The dilemma you are facing is that all 8 slots are currently occupied, so you have to take them out and get 8 new sticks of 2G each to increase memory to 16 GB, leaving the ones you currently have more or less worthless.

You can search for these modules: Kingston ValueRAM KVR667D2D8F5/2GI which should be compatible or have a look at the SuperMicro site for tested memory to give you some alternatives.

Thanks for that - I had a look at the Supermicro site but they list FBD DDR2 667 ECC as well as FBD DDR2 1.55V-667 ECC and I'm not sure which is better/more appropriate.

Either way, none of their tested RAM is Kingston.

I'm happy to pull out the current RAM to be completely replaced. I'll eBay it maybe. Hopefully someone will have a use for it.

So 16GB of RAM is a good move? More and more it seems to be the amount people are using.

It's what Adobe recommends in their White Paper on the subject.

Don't forget that CS5 will be 64 bit only, so finally you can use all installed memory and from that point of view it makes a lot of sense to install as much as possible.

Exactly - so I'll definitely upgrade. Just got to convince the other half that it's a good idea. Also thought I could just wait a while and go straight to 32GB if they make 4GB sticks.

If you are going to have to start over on the RAM, I would look into getting four 4GB sticks for 16GB now, and then in a year or two, you can couble that. Ideally prices will continue to fall, and the second 16GB will be cheaper in a year or two. Until then, 16GB should be sufficient for most purposes.

I had the same idea. But not one online store that I can find in Australia can give me a price on the 4GB sticks. Most didn't even have the 2GB sticks listed - I had to ring and get them to ring somoene else! I'll keep trying to track them down. Is importing a good idea? If so, who does DVInfo recommend for PC parts?

I think I'll go with Mike's advice and get 4 x 4GB sticks for now, and add a further 4 x 4 in the future when I win the lotto.

I think I've narrowed it down to these sticks of RAM:

KVR667D2D4F5/4G (http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/partsinfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=&ktcpartno=KVR667D2D4F5/4G) Dual Rank

and

KVR667D2Q8F5/4G (http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/partsinfo.asp?root=us&LinkBack=&ktcpartno=KVR667D2Q8F5/4G) Quad Rank

The only difference is the ranks (which I don't understand) (and US$2) and the fact that I can easily get the Dual Rank RAM but can't find the Quad Rank RAM anywhere over here.

Can someone advise me of the difference/advantage of one over the other? And what's with the fact that the combination of letters and numbers is different to the ones I have already? I have KVR667D2D8F5 and if these are D2D4 and D2Q8 am I making a step up or down? Do those letters and numbers indicate the rank maybe?

The D2"D" is Dual Rank and D2"Q" is Quad Rank. Since you have Dual Rank dimms, you need to stay with Dual Rank.

As some have suggested, getting 4GB sticks is a good way to go. However, removing 4 of your current 1GB sticks and installing the new 4GB sticks there will leave you with 20GB total. There is no reason for you to remove the remaining 1GB sticks. You have 2 CPUs with 4 ram slots for each and varying colors for each slot. Install 2 4GB sticks in the same color slot for both CPUs. (ie slot 1 & 3 are black and 2 & 4 are blue - use slots 1 & 3 for both CPUs)

That's a great idea. I thought it was a big no-no to install different types of ram like that?

1) For dual channel, always install in multiples of 2. With 4 slots, if only 3 are full, then ALL ram defaults to single channel speed (ie half the speed of dual channel)

2) You can mix ram speeds but it will always default to the slowest speed. ie, mix DDR2 667 and DDR2 800 and everything runs at 667.

3) You can mix models but each model should be in multiples of 2. For example, mixing 2 2GB of Corsair DDR2-800 and 2 2GB of OCZ DDR2-800. Actually, this is what I had in my prior PC.

4) You can mix sizes as long as each size is in multiples of 2. Dell, HP and others often sold PCs with 3GB total using 2 1GB sticks and 2 512MB sticks.

Excellent - just ordered 4 x 4GB dual rank sticks.

So with my RAM all being 667, I can install:

Slot 1: 4GB
Slot 2: 4GB
Slot 3: 1GB
Slot 4: 1GB
Slot 5: 4GB
Slot 6: 4GB
Slot 7: 1GB
Slot 8: 1GB

Is that the best bet?

Or should I go 4,1,4,1,4,1,4,1 ??

Also, currenly, at 8GB RAM, my page file on my D: drive is 12GB.

When I have 20GB RAM, should I reduce that? Increase it? Leave it the same?

4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1

Slots 1 & 3 are a channel and 2 & 4 are a channel and the ram within a channel need to be the same. The slots on the motherboard should be color coded with 1 & 3 the same and 2 & 4 the same(but different from 1 & 3).

Let Windows manage the size of Page File on your D drive or at least make it as large as your installed ram. (so minimum 20GB)

Steve,

Here I do not agree with you. I would have a fixed pagefile (min=max), not a Windows managed pagefile, for the simple reason you do not want pagefile fragmentation.

A second consideration is that with 20 GB of memory first there will not often be the necessity to use the pagefile at all, so the current size of 8 GB looks more than enough. Not increasing the size may direct Win7 to use the much faster memory more instead of the slower pagefile.

I have avoided messing with page file settings to much since you can screw things up more than I want to by experimenting, but what about having no page file? With 8GB Ram following the 1.5 rule you should have a 12GB pagefile. If you upgrade to 20GB, setting you pagefile to zero will give you the same amount of available "memory" to windows as you had before, but it will all be high speed. Is there any disadvantage to turning off the page file (besides limiting the "memory" available to your OS) related to stability, compatability, etc? It seems like that would be the ideal way to operate, especially if you are getting up there with 24 or 32GB of RAM. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Mike,

While theoretically correct, there is one problem: Windows insists on having a pagefile and if one can not be found, it will automatically create a Windows managed one on your C drive.

In previous versions, Windows was not clever enough to use the pagefile only when running out of faster memory, but with the amount of installed memory now growing rapidly, one would hope that the intelligence of when and how to use the pagefile would also increase. I admit this is only hope, not substantiated fact.

So the best bet might be a small (4GB? or even 2GB?) page file?

From my experience with Page file, its better to have more than less. If it all is used, the system will come to a screeching halt. I used Kaspersky anti-virus and its 2008 version had bad memory leaking problems where all 12GB of my ram and all 12GB of P F would fill up and I would have to do a hard restart. You most likely won't encounter the Kaspersky problem, but using a small P F could still cause this problem. I say try different sizes while using AE, PPro and Photoshop to really fill up the ram and run some typical tasks.

With 20GB of ram, Dynamic Link will eat that up very quickly. Digitalcontentproducer.com tested PPro CS4 on Vista x64 and found that a R3D 4k clip being encoded (via Adobe Media Encoder) used up to 60GB, which includes 16GB ram and 44GB of page file.

I should also add that if Microsoft can't fine tune 7 x64 to use ram better, forcing it to use less P F won't do anything but cause problems. FYI, 7 x64 is supposed to be better at ram management than Vista.

Quick question regarding page files...

As it is, my PC has the system drive connected through a Vantec Ez-Swap so that I can run multiple systems off of the one machine. I do this so that I have a functioning editing machine on one system, another drive to test new software and plug-ins and stuff, and another drive for Internet, media streaming and even flight simulator.

If I have a page file on D: configured through the editing system, will that page file be there for all other systems as well? Or, do I need to tell them to have one there too? But if I do that, won't I end up with three separate page files? I don't really know how it works?

Am I safer to just have the other systems use page files on the C drive?

Yes, leave the other two systems' page file on their C drive. I only say this due to my experience when I reinstall the OS. I also use a separate drive for the page file and after reinstalling the OS, I change the page file to the D drive and Vista/7 see the old page file and asks if I want to overwrite it.

Hope this helps.

I can't believe it's been almost three years since I last asked a question about RAM!

I'm still using this same machine and am considering filling the four remaining slots with the memory

here (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/16GB-4x4GB-MEMORY-RAM-4-Supermicro-X7DWT-INF-X7DWT-INF-X7DWU-X7DWT-X7DWA-N-/271104344178?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item3f1f140072) to go with my four sticks of KVR667D2D4F5/4G.

But I'm worried about purchasing a brand-less product. Is it a fairly safe thing to purchase from eBay or would I be smarter to spend more (more than double the price!) to get the same four sticks of KVR667D2D4F5/4G again.

I'd be inclined to go ask on the Adobe Premiere Pro Hardware forum. ISTR several threads talking about problems with some RAM.

John,

I am not entirely sure of your system.. custom built? I am also not sure if Xeon cpus require very specific memory or your m/b does. I've built 40+ computers the past 15+ years and have almost always used memory that is on sale, with the exception of a couple builds where I used super cheap China memory. Thus far, I've never had one stick of memory go bad on me. I would say, given how cheap memory is today, if your board can handle 4GB and 8GB sticks, maybe even look at grabbing 2 8GB matched sticks, see if those work, if so grab 2 more. You can never have too much memory!

I am still trying to figure out however if my 32GB system, with AE/PPro only showing 3GB max per core (I have AMD 8-core) and using only 4 cores, if I will make any use of 32GB. I just ordered another 16GB yesterday myself to give me 32GB total. I know the OS can use it, just not sure if PPro and AE use 20+ GB or not when the prefs indicates it gives a max of 3GB per core.