Re:From a guy who needs 2GB for XP (Score 1)

Well, it seems that the quote was actually taken out of context and now so many people are kicking this around like a dead cat. I'm not a MS Fanboi, so flamers can leave now, or stay and learn something. I'm actually a gamer as well as a technologist, so i can comment on WoW performance on XP and Vista, as well as the implications of hardware and system capacity for hardcore power users. What was stated was that for a "power user" or "hard core gamer", 4gb on an x64 would be the sweet spot between performance and price. The power user would be someone who has a fairly substantial amount of robust applications open at any one point. This is NOT someone who just loads their browser and IM client and thinks that they're heavy duty. This is someone who runs heavy graphics and processing applications that needs a responsive system to efficiently do their work (or play). Also, with today's gaming requirements, many of the files and libraries are of significant heft and will certainly benefit from Superfetch. Windows Superfetch uses all of the available RAM to move data up the cpu-ram-hdd heirarchy. When Superfetch is "trained" through repetitive and predictive use by a particular user, data is cached in the much faster read/write/access RAM level and performance is increased. The premise is to move data closer to the CPU to allow faster data transfer and processing. Should the RAM be needed by an unforeseen application or process, the cached RAM is discarded and then reloaded (although transferring gigs of information from the HDD back to RAM will take some time). If you looked at your task manager in Vista, you would see that available RAM probably stays at zero (0). Microsoft, after the beta, added a spot to tell you what amount of RAM was being used for Superfetch caching, so you didn't pull your hair out wondering what happened to all of your RAM. The Pre-Fetch of Windows XP was a totally different piece of technology and used logs to prepare an application for "sequential loading", thus improving speed. As far as Readyboost, this technology adds another level of cache just BELOW that of RAM and only slightly above a speedy HDD with cache. Readyboost is decent, in my opinion, but as you all know, while the read speeds are fairly snappy on a USB stick, the write speeds are below that of most hard drives. My recommendation would be to utilize this feature with the maximum allowed (4gig one stick). If I can clarify anything else, please respond! I appreciate the input from the users on this site as I have found them to be (mostly) intelligent and very knowledgeable.