Buy Now or Wait?

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FastChapter
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Buy Now or Wait?

#1 Post by FastChapter »

I'm looking at buying another set of Corsair 2x 2Gb 4-4-4-12 memory sticks so my computer doesn't take a [censored] on itself when I try ramping up the graphics for GTA. I already know my limited memory (already have 4Gb, Windows uses 1.5-2, GTA requires 2.5) is where the information is bottlenecking, so I'm finding myself in a pickle.

I could buy the RAM now, and get it for just shy of $80 (assuming I screw up the rebate, which I usually do). Or I could throw the URL to my folks, hope that maybe they take a leap and pick it up for me for Christmas (we're on a very tight budget, so it's unlikely). Either way, I know I'm going to be getting it within the month. My question is, should I wait and see if Christmas brings better sales, see if my folks pick it up, or just go ahead and buy it now?

Note: I'm using those same chips in my rig at the moment, so there's no compatibility issues. I know there's an identical set for $90 that has different timing, but I'm leery about mixing RAM.

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Sable Dove
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#2 Post by Sable Dove »

I would advise waiting until after Christmas; if you don't get it for Christmas, the prices typically go down afterward. But I'm cheap like that; my whole family is cheap; we wait until things are dirt cheap before buying anything.
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Ryusen
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#3 Post by Ryusen »

That depends. If you absolutely have to have it now, then go ahead and fork over the cash. If you can wait, I'd say go with the Christmas option. Heck, they might even have a New-Years discount if you can manage to wait that long.
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aj
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#4 Post by aj »

FastChapter wrote:I'm looking at buying another set of Corsair 2x 2Gb 4-4-4-12 memory sticks so my computer doesn't take a [censored] on itself when I try ramping up the graphics for GTA. I already know my limited memory (already have 4Gb, Windows uses 1.5-2, GTA requires 2.5) is where the information is bottlenecking, so I'm finding myself in a pickle.

I could buy the RAM now, and get it for just shy of $80 (assuming I screw up the rebate, which I usually do). Or I could throw the URL to my folks, hope that maybe they take a leap and pick it up for me for Christmas (we're on a very tight budget, so it's unlikely). Either way, I know I'm going to be getting it within the month. My question is, should I wait and see if Christmas brings better sales, see if my folks pick it up, or just go ahead and buy it now?

Note: I'm using those same chips in my rig at the moment, so there's no compatibility issues. I know there's an identical set for $90 that has different timing, but I'm leery about mixing RAM.
Running Vista 64-bit, I presume? (If you aren't, there's no point getting more RAM, but you'd know that, judging from what you posted in the past.)

I think the question comes down to does newegg do sales or not? From what I've heard of them, they don't, so I'd say get it now. And try for the rebate anyway.

If it was a brick-and-mortar store, I'd wait, but usually if internet stores don't have frequent sales on stuff (e.g. deviantArt, judging from the messages seemingly every single week), it's unlikely that there will be a holiday sale. (At least stores that I'm somewhat familiar with anyway.)

Is it really a bottleneck with the memory though? I haven't heard of any game that significantly improves performance with more RAM beyond even 2GB. Though that could be just a sign of how out of touch I am with games and hardware nowadays. Silly school. :wink:

EDIT: A search shows numerous threads complaining about poor performance on GTA4 on systems with specs like a quad core Q9300 @ 2.83GHz and 4gb of ram still only hitting 25FPS.
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avwolf
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#5 Post by avwolf »

Actually, NewEgg runs a lot of sales, including crazy one-day sale stuff, all the time. That they'll have a New Years' sale is almost a given.

That's really ridiculous spec requirements, though. How does it run on an XBox?
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aj
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#6 Post by aj »

avwolf wrote:Actually, NewEgg runs a lot of sales, including crazy one-day sale stuff, all the time. That they'll have a New Years' sale is almost a given.

That's really ridiculous spec requirements, though. How does it run on an XBox?
And that's what I get for not using NewEgg. :P So, I guess, yes, yep, wait then. Maybe temporarily set that page to your homepage so you don't forget to check it already semi-daily?

As for the XBox, from what I'm reading, there are a few people who have noticed issues with the graphics and low FPS rates on it too. And it was (AFAIK) coded as a platform game first anyway, and then ported to PC, and many people are thinking the graphics problems arose from the porting.

For reference, here are some of the links Google threw up:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthr ... ?p=4237457
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/sh ... 880&page=0
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=344018
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?s=c7 ... pic=378730
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FastChapter
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#7 Post by FastChapter »

I've heard people having problems with GTA on those fancy quad-cores as well, but again, they're using 4Gb of RAM. You called it right, I'm using Windows Ultimate 64-bit, and it eats my memory like potato chips. Runs fine, so does everything else, but GTA is extremely heavy on the memory usage.

The reason I know this is because my FPS fell through the floor a few days ago, and I minimized the game to see if Avast or something was scanning for viruses. It wasn't, and nothing else was running either. But lo and behold, in my sidebar, my CPU/RAM meters told exactly what was happening. CPU was wobbling around 50-60%, RAM was redlining at 96-98%.

If you go to Rockstar's website, they recommend 2.5Gb of memory, which is just about what's left over when Windows is running idle.

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aj
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#8 Post by aj »

FastChapter wrote:I've heard people having problems with GTA on those fancy quad-cores as well, but again, they're using 4Gb of RAM. You called it right, I'm using Windows Ultimate 64-bit, and it eats my memory like potato chips. Runs fine, so does everything else, but GTA is extremely heavy on the memory usage.

The reason I know this is because my FPS fell through the floor a few days ago, and I minimized the game to see if Avast or something was scanning for viruses. It wasn't, and nothing else was running either. But lo and behold, in my sidebar, my CPU/RAM meters told exactly what was happening. CPU was wobbling around 50-60%, RAM was redlining at 96-98%.

If you go to Rockstar's website, they recommend 2.5Gb of memory, which is just about what's left over when Windows is running idle.
96-98%? Wow. That's impressively high. Especially if it's only GTA and Vista running. Thing about the 4gb ram, that's how much physical ram they have, like you. No mention of how much RAM GTA is actively using.

I'd still wait for the expected patch for GTA to come out first... Might not be necessary to upgrade if the patch fixes everything, especially if you're upgrading solely to fix the GTA issue. But you can wait for the patch while waiting for a NewEgg sale. :)
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#9 Post by Ryusen »

aj wrote: I'd still wait for the expected patch for GTA to come out first... Might not be necessary to upgrade if the patch fixes everything, especially if you're upgrading solely to fix the GTA issue. But you can wait for the patch while waiting for a NewEgg sale. :)
But then you couldn't brag about having 8Gb of RAM. Heck, my laptop drags it feet with just a measly 2Gb.
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#10 Post by aj »

Ryusen wrote:But then you couldn't brag about having 8Gb of RAM. Heck, my laptop drags it feet with just a measly 2Gb.
True about the 8gb... but where he mentioned "very tight budget", I kind of assume saving money>bragging rights... though it is tempting.

And does your laptop really drag it's feet with 2GB of RAM? Mine has 2GB and it ran Vista Business fine with VS2008 Pro + Firefox + Winamp + etc. with no problems. It runs XP Pro now, but that's because I messed up the drive geometry messing around with it in PartitionMagic trying to make the quick boot to watch dvds thing work like a normal xp installation. (tip: If the drive boots, but PartitionMagic claims it found a problem, don't allow it to automatically be repaired.)

Heck, right now I've got Lightroom rendering previews for ~200 raw files, winamp, VS 2008, Firefox, XChat, Skype, MSN, Apache, MySQL, 2 instances of streamripper running as well as MS VDM and it's still responsive. What programs are you running that would bog down so much? Or are you talking about game performance?
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#11 Post by SpeedFreak »

I think you should wait. There must be a better deal....i say wait
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#12 Post by Ryusen »

aj wrote:And does your laptop really drag it's feet with 2GB of RAM?
Not in the least. But the jump from 2Gb to 8Gb+ is fairly drastic. I'd love to get a PC with those kinds of capabilities, but my budget is tighter than my Spandex shorts. :razz:
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#13 Post by aj »

Ryusen wrote:Not in the least. But the jump from 2Gb to 8Gb+ is fairly drastic. I'd love to get a PC with those kinds of capabilities, but my budget is tighter than my Spandex shorts. :razz:
Actually, Fast, will your mobo even support 8GB of RAM? Mine only goes up to 4GB, but it's going on 5 years old. (Not my laptop, an old desktop)

Ryusen: Ditto. Except for the budget. Being in high school, my budget borders on non-existent. :?

We can still dream though. And save. |D
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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#14 Post by FastChapter »

Yep, it'll support 8Gb as far as I know. It has four RAM slots, two of which are in use.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131013

It's new as of June, so there's no reason why it shouldn't support that much. But I'm thinking about waiting for this patch you mentioned. If it fixes the problem, I'll probably wait until after Christmas to do any computer shopping.

Oh, when Windows is idle, I'm using about 30-40% of my RAM. I think someone asked for that baseline.

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Re: Buy Now or Wait?

#15 Post by aj »

FastChapter wrote:Yep, it'll support 8Gb as far as I know. It has four RAM slots, two of which are in use.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131013

It's new as of June, so there's no reason why it shouldn't support that much. But I'm thinking about waiting for this patch you mentioned. If it fixes the problem, I'll probably wait until after Christmas to do any computer shopping.
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe wrote:Maximum Memory Supported: 8GB
Yep, 8GB looks right.

Well, you could always mention the url to people like your original plan...
FastChapter wrote:Oh, when Windows is idle, I'm using about 30-40% of my RAM. I think someone asked for that baseline.
30% is ~1.2GB of RAM...! :shock: What in the world are you running? Running Vista (no SP1), I found it annoying that my laptop was at 40% usage (max) when idle, but that was with 2GB of RAM, not 4! Which meant ~800MB, 1.2GB is half that again, and that's the lower end of your scale... :?
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