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should I buy more RAM?

Pumbaa
By Pumbaa
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Just now, Pumbaa said:

I am using Linux Ubuntu with 16GB DDR4 RAM and 17GB swap memory. Over the day my RAM usage is constantly around 80% RAM. For certain tasks more RAM is needed and swap is used.

 

I don't bother the performance decrease in general but my mouse and editors are becoming unresponsive during swap and this is very annoying. Total RAM usage peaks at ~20 GB.

 

Should I try to optimize my system settings or buy more RAM?

Do both, if you can.  Optimizing is always beneficial and more efficient.  Also, more RAM may be useful on top of that. I'm breaking 16GB when playing games now.

 

Lots of background stuff, but I gotta have Steam , Origin, Battlenet, ARC, etc open so I can get into my games ASAP! :)  Or cuz I'm lazy, either one.

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I am using Linux Ubuntu with 16GB DDR4 RAM and 17GB swap memory. Over the day my RAM usage is constantly around 80% RAM. For certain tasks more RAM is needed and swap is used.

 

I don't bother the performance decrease in general but my mouse and editors are becoming unresponsive during swap and this is very annoying. Total RAM usage peaks at ~20 GB.

 

Should I try to optimize my system settings or buy more RAM?

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Just now, Pumbaa said:

I am using Linux Ubuntu with 16GB DDR4 RAM and 17GB swap memory. Over the day my RAM usage is constantly around 80% RAM. For certain tasks more RAM is needed and swap is used.

 

I don't bother the performance decrease in general but my mouse and editors are becoming unresponsive during swap and this is very annoying. Total RAM usage peaks at ~20 GB.

 

Should I try to optimize my system settings or buy more RAM?

Do both, if you can.  Optimizing is always beneficial and more efficient.  Also, more RAM may be useful on top of that. I'm breaking 16GB when playing games now.

 

Lots of background stuff, but I gotta have Steam , Origin, Battlenet, ARC, etc open so I can get into my games ASAP! :)  Or cuz I'm lazy, either one.

"Do what makes the experience better" - in regards to PCs and Life itself.

 

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Buy more? Memory is cheap compared to the past.

CPU: i7-2600K 4751MHz 1.44V (software) --> 1.47V at the back of the socket Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4 (BCLK: 103.3MHz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 RAM: Adata XPG 2x8GB DDR3 (XMP: 2133MHz 10-11-11-30 CR2, custom: 2203MHz 10-11-10-26 CR1 tRFC:230 tREFI:14000) GPU: Asus GTX 1070 Dual (Super Jetstream vbios, +70(2025-2088MHz)/+400(8.8Gbps)) SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB (main boot drive), Transcend SSD370 128GB PSU: Seasonic X-660 80+ Gold Case: Antec P110 Silent, 5 intakes 1 exhaust Monitor: AOC G2460PF 1080p 144Hz (150Hz max w/ DP, 121Hz max w/ HDMI) TN panel Keyboard: Logitech G610 Orion (Cherry MX Blue) with SteelSeries Apex M260 keycaps Mouse: BenQ Zowie FK1

 

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A little more ram would probably be good, dual 4GB is rather affordable and if you're putting it to good use then it's a good investment.

I WILL find your ITX build thread, and I WILL recommend the SIlverstone Sugo SG13B

 

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1 minute ago, Pumbaa said:

I am using Linux Ubuntu with 16GB DDR4 RAM and 17GB swap memory. Over the day my RAM usage is constantly around 80% RAM. For certain tasks more RAM is needed and swap is used.

 

I don't bother the performance decrease in general but my mouse and editors are becoming unresponsive during swap and this is very annoying. Total RAM usage peaks at ~20 GB.

I have to ask, what are you doing that requires so much RAM? Also, I hope you aren't using a spinning-rust drive for your swap. I mean, swap on an SSD is still a fraction of the speed of actual RAM, but it's still millions of times better than on a mechanical drive.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

I have to ask, what are you doing that requires so much RAM?

searching up directory trees, I do a lot of caching. Also, all my tool chain relies heavily on caching for pre-processing and parallel compilation. These are 6-12 tasks executed in parallel with each at least 1GB RAM. I don't do this non-stop, though, and these tasks take too long anyway so it doesn't make sense to increase performance. I need uninterrupted typing in my editor this is what is driving me nuts.

 

8 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

Also, I hope you aren't using a spinning-rust drive for your swap.

Well, I was using my samsung m2 evo for swap originally, but I read that swap can quickly wear out SSDs. Recently I moved swap to a 7200 rpm HDD. I didn't notice any difference with this change.

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2 minutes ago, Pumbaa said:

I don't do this non-stop, though, and these tasks take too long anyway so it doesn't make sense to increase performance. I need uninterrupted typing in my editor this is what is driving me nuts

If it doesn't matter if those jobs run a little longer, you could run them in an lxc-container and restrict the container's RAM-use to, say, 12GB at max, so there'd always be a few gigs left for your desktop-tasks. Could also run the lxc-container at nice-level of 19.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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I think lxc-container are bound to a single-core. For the sake of stability I'll do both buy +16GB and restrict total RAM usage.

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@WikiForce this is not for normal desktop operation. The sole purpose of RAM is to saturate my 12 CPU threads. I have some tasks running over night.

 

32GB RAM is recommended for my task anyway, RAM prices were sky high when I bought it so it was pretty obvious I'd buy more soon.

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4 minutes ago, Pumbaa said:

I think lxc-container are bound to a single-core.

No, they aren't. I use lxc-containers all the time. You *can* restrict the number of cores they're allowed to use, if you want to, but by default there is no such a restriction.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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8 minutes ago, WikiForce said:

16GB RAM not enough for Linux? Which day and age are we living in?

He's likely doing some workload alongside it. 2GB is enough for web browsing in lubuntu nowadays

Ryzen 7 3700X / 16GB RAM / Optane SSD / GTX 1650 / Solus Linux

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