With the introduction of the Intel Core i7 processor series, which features an on-die, triple-channel memory controller, consumers now have a choice between 3GB (3 x 1GB) and 6GB (3 x 2GB) system memory densities.

http://www.corsair.com/appnotes/default.aspx

Hm, some decent minimum framerate improvements there. But it requires GTX 280 SLI at medium resolutions...

Didn't think there would even be that much, but considering Vista was still caching game files to virtual memory despite 6GB of physical memory...

overall the gain is very small in my humble opinion, especially when you take into account the extra cost, the benefit doesn't outweigh the extra $$$

Gains are small indeed. But I was not expecting any, nor was I expecting them to be consistent on MIN framerates... can think of many more games that exhibit the same virtual memory caching even with 4GB installed. The Average/Max scores are the least important, the MIN is the rate this helps the most.

Agreed that it's not worth the extra cost by itself, but it's a good reason to keep in mind if you have others to get 6GB over 3GB. Can find 6GB kits below $200, even the good 1600MHz kits are $270 with rebates starting to appear.

The same results raised some eyebrowns when Intels and SLC SSDs provided a minimum framerate boost because data was loaded faster from the HD so the explanation why it is like that is sound.

The most important question is however, how does it do on XP? Because if only 2 Gig of 3 GB gets used, the OS or the Game is pretty stupid and it wouldn't surprise me one bit when Vista is once again to blame.

I agree with Rutar: the question should not be why the MIN fps raises that much with the extra memory, the question should be why is it so low to begin with. Vista might be to blaim for this, not the amount of memory, which (if I'm not mistaken) was already shown by Jmke in his GTX280/4870X2 testings.

XP is 32bit, and therefore no program can use >2GB of memory regardless on XP. The only expection is if you use the /3GB switch in the boot.ini, AND the program is compiled with the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header.

2 GB would still be more than what was used by a single program

open up some 10+Mpixel pics in Photoshop
8Gb recommended