Readyboost... is it worth it on a high end PC?

As per the title, is it worth it on a decent PC running x64 7 Ultimate.

From my limited understanding of it, it is a quasi replacement for RAM on very low end systems.

What if anything does a Quad core x64 6GB system gain from readyboost?

 

You won't gain anything, unless you're using RAM-intensive programs for RAM-intensive tasks, such as Photoshop for 15 megapixel picture editing, etc.

Readyboost was DESIGNED to enable a "cheap upgrade" for low-RAM systems, as you said. It wasn't designed as a state of the art technology.

 

ReadyBoost is most useful with slower HDDs; it speeds up access to small, non-sequential cached files that would be much slower when accessed from the Windows swap file (which is much faster at transferring large sequential files).

If you're using a 'green' HDD, a 7200 with a small cache or a 5400 RPM drive, you'll probably see a reduction in system boot time and application loading times by using 2-4GB of ReadyBoost.

 

Its debatable as the system he mentions has 6 gig of ram, so 2-4 more gigs of readyboost probably wont make that much of a difference.

 

The amount of RAM has little effect on the usefulness of ReadyBoost, which is used to speed up access to cached data that would normally be pulled from the swapfile, ie. the HDD, not from RAM.

If the swapfile was disabled or Windows is booted from an SSD, ReadyBoost would be useless (or disabled anyway, in the case of the SSD install).

The more RAM that's installed, the less Windows needs to use the swapfile (or ReadyBoost).

With games, for instance, that use the swapfile, eg for loading new areas and levels, ReadyBoost will work in conjunction with the Swapfile, loading into RAM the small, randomly located files, whilst the swapfile loads the larger and sequential files.

 

Thanks for the input folks.

I restart my main PC very rarely so reducing boot time is not a thing i care much about at all and i think the most resource intensive task i do is make a DVD from an avi (which is all about the CPU if i'm not mistaken)

90% of the work this PC does is in a way just typical browsing... email, ebay, googling, watching vid's, however it's probably about the same amount as 50 peoples browsing habits i typically have a couple of hundred tabs/windows open in each browser and many of them are on auto refresh.

Right now i have 188 in FF, 53 in Chrome, 11 in IE, and i'm not really working today!

So, i think i'll just give it a go for a week and see if i notice anything, and if i do then i'll fit an internal USB and put it in ther.

The only reason i havn't just tried it already is because i only get the readyboost prompt on my good 8GB kingston Drive which i'd rather not have tied to my PC unless it is worth it.

BTW; my HDD is a 1TB Western Digital Black 7200rpm, which i believe is a performance orientated drive (it was only bought cos it was the right price for the size i wanted)