RAM Caching and other uses for extra unused RAM, is it beneficial if you have enough spare RAM Options

[dreamreaver]

Was reading a review on the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme and in the review they had a bit about Why do I want 32GB of Memory?

And they mentioned RAM caching and the results where apparently outstanding.

Anyone have experience with RAM caching or recommend any good RAM caching programs if you think its worth it, so far I am leaning to (SuperCache5).

I am curious about this and want to learn more since i will be having 32GB in my new system that i am building.

Any info, suggestions, opinions appreciated. And any other useful ways to use the spare RAM are welcome.

[A Hitman]

Can't say I have ever heard of that before, but I thought Vista, and by extension 7 already did this?

[osama_bin_athlon]

I thought that those RAM Disk programs that you see from time to time were BS......but then nobody had 32G of the shit to play with back in the day - maybe they do work, providing you have the RAM......
make an image of your OS, just in case, and try installing one of the programs? nothing to lose except time.
I can't imagine that you'll ever use 32G, but it certainly gives you an impressively enormous e-penis
like the Hitman, I thought that win7 was supposed to be pretty good at handling all that anyway.......
there were a lot more of those RAMdisk type programs around the 98SE/winMe/win2K period, when everyone was using 128/256/512MB of RAM (98SE could only address 512MB RAM)
personally, I'm thinking an SSD would make more of a real difference, or even that new Intel stuff were you use an SSD for caching + a normal HDD
to be honest with you, I think using a RAMdisk program would be at best a waste of time, you already have 32G that it's highly likely you'll never use with the current software situation
but, give it a go - you could be on to something......there's only one way to find out.

[Dasa]

why settle for 32g ~$160-300 when you can get 64g ~$900 1333mhz to $1200 1866mhz :)
oh right the insane price jump
32g ram on that system should be some fun to play with but it will have to refill the ram drive each time you turn on the pc so you will want a quick ssd or you will still have one of the slowest complete boot times ever

[dreamreaver]

I thought that those RAM Disk programs that you see from time to time were BS......but then nobody had 32G of the shit to play with back in the day - maybe they do work, providing you have the RAM......
make an image of your OS, just in case, and try installing one of the programs? nothing to lose except time.
I can't imagine that you'll ever use 32G, but it certainly gives you an impressively enormous e-penis
like the Hitman, I thought that win7 was supposed to be pretty good at handling all that anyway.......
there were a lot more of those RAMdisk type programs around the 98SE/winMe/win2K period, when everyone was using 128/256/512MB of RAM (98SE could only address 512MB RAM)
personally, I'm thinking an SSD would make more of a real difference, or even that new Intel stuff were you use an SSD for caching + a normal HDD
to be honest with you, I think using a RAMdisk program would be at best a waste of time, you already have 32G that it's highly likely you'll never use with the current software situation
but, give it a go - you could be on to something......there's only one way to find out.

Yeah i am going to give RAM caching a go when my computer is built, and see if there is any sort of benefit, like you said there is only one way to find out. Will post the results if i remember. Just need my motherboard to arrive and the computer shall be built, after 8 long months of getting parts for it. Can't wait :D

[Xen]

The OS will use any spare RAM for disk cache.

Nothing fancy needs to be done.

[A Hitman]

The OS will use any spare RAM for disk cache.

Nothing fancy needs to be done.

Source?

[Dread Emperor]

I use eboostr quiet regularly for RAM caching; handy thing to have, but really only if the system is ran 25/7 or frequently opened programs (browser/media player/office apps/etc). A very good use for ram drives is video and music editing, where large raw files can be cached for faster access.

My setup is using a ram drive in tandum with a SSD+HDD hybrid; least used stuff can load from the HDD, system files and moderately used apps load from the SSD. Anything that's used very frequently gets auto-cached from hybrid's SSD to the ram drive.

Best all-rounder for those without excessive ram and no hardware hybrid modes, is to have a SSD and HDD seperate - dedicated the whole SSD to the caching program.

This post has been edited by Dread Emperor: Nov 27 2011, 01:12 PM

[dinos22]

RAM Caching was sexy when we only had mechanical drives. All you have to do today is buy an SSD or two and you're done.

If you think you could use it for video editing you are wrong again, Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere use all your system RAM regardless of what you have already.

[dreamreaver]

Well I have my new system up and running.

did a 3D Mark 11 Performance and PCMark 7 testing, without RAM Caching and with using SuperCache 5, only tested once at the moment and will do more tests later. Doesn't seem to improve much.

Only used PCMark 7 and 3D Mark 11 and did only one run of each.

results

3DMark11

12000P with RAM caching
11917P with out RAM caching
1950P my precious computer before the new build :-P

PCMark 7

5836 with RAM caching
5637 without RAM caching
1504 my previous computer before this new build :-P


my conclusion

Difference between my old system and new system is massive, RAM caching, meh, nothing special, maybe i am doing something wrong or the program (SuperCache 5) isn't configured properly.