question about RAM modules

[stellar]

Hi people,

I'm just about to buy a new computer, a home computer, mostly will be used for modelling and rendering stuff (stills to be specific).

My question is about RAM choices.

I am planning to buy 1gb 550mhz corsair brand modules, but almost every review about them are mentioning about gaming performance, which is not my aim.

I would like to know the difference between a 400mhz kingston and a 550mhz corsair in terms of modelling rendering usage.

thanks

[gafl]

HI Stellar !

In term of modelling, I don't think you see any difference...

You model as fast as your hands do with the mouse and the keyboard...
The RAM speed is interesting in calculating, rendering the image.
The more you have memory, the better your machine works.
You can work on big scenes without "problems" with a lot of memory.
But its speed is only a matter of rendering.

Bye !
Gaël

[dellis]

I would say that ram is fine...get a really good video card though. I know it won't help the rendering part but it sure makes things easier when modeling.

[stellar]

i'm having trouble finding professional equipment here so i guess i have to do with an ati 9800 series card at the moment.

so basicly you say that a gaming aimed module is also ok for rendering ?

i'm terrible at modelling so the only benefit would be working with hi-poloy scenes

[losbellos]

I think ram wouldnt make much difference in this case. The whole thing very much depends on the motherboard and/or
processor if it has memory controller. I think in nowdays motherboard you dont get much performance gain by this. I dont know how much the price difference is, the only thing I would chosse the 550mhz because It might be still more usable later if you'll upgrade.

Look for quake3 engine performance differences, that engine is quite dependent on the memory speed.

[Syclone1]

Go with the Corsair if its in your budget, Micron and OCZ are also top notch manufacturers. As some said here the ram will only afect your actual rendering and the complexity of the scene will determin how much ram you will need. 1 gig is a good number for most users. The major factors that will afect your modeling speeds are your skills your video card then CPU basically in that order.

If your getting a board that supports dual channel, for the most part you can go with 2 identical sticks of for example PC3500, going with a dual channel "kit" that some are selling for more you wont see any real difference other than price.

The only other thing I can think of at the moment is try to get sticks with some sort of heatsink on them, the cooler everything is the longer and better it will run.

-dave

[stellar]

Thanks Guys,

it's been really helpful

motherboard is going to be gigabyte 8knxp
and the cpu will be p4 3.2E

corsair is quite expensive compared to kingston etc but it's 550mhz, has platinum heatsink

hard disk will be western digital raptor serial ata 10000rpm with a rather tiny capacity of 36gb but it's enough for me

the graphics card will wit for sometime i guess
i have to do with the old matrox for a little longer

cheers