Ram or ssd

Hey guys

I have and R3 core i5 with 6gb ram and 750gb hard drive. I hear everyone go on about how great SSD's are. My question is should I get one or should I upgrade RAM first (is 6gb enough) ?

Thanks in advance

 

6gb of ram is enough for everyday users and do a little gaming, 8gb+ is recommended if you also do audio/pic/video editing.

The basic benefits of upgrading to SSD is the faster boot time and file transfer rate, plus many others, including higher chance of survival of your files if you drop the computer while in use.

Since the price of SSD is not as creazy as when they first released on the market, a 256gb SSD is affordable and space-y. I personally use a 960gb Crucial SSD, for under 500£, as it's the cheapest 1tb SSD one can find on the current market.

In conclusion, yes, upgrade to a 500gb SSD and use the 750gb HDD as the backup drive; or get a 256gb SSD and 16gb RAM kit (upgeade to 8gb from 6gb won't have significant improvement for your system, IMHO), assuming you are on a limited budget.

Of course, if you can afford them, get the 500gb or 1tb SSD alongside the 16gb RAM kit, and you are pretty much reach the max upgradable spec of a R3, I think.

 

Get the SSD. The legends are true. Yes, some will debate that FPS don't go up gaming wise necessarily (basically true), but for everything else its worth it. Before doing it though, I'd take a backup image and plan out which drivers you need to download first (and store them separately). I think AlienRespawn can be made to work going from a HDD to an SSD, but I think its generally accepted that your best bet is to go with a clean install from scratch on the new SSD.

 

Go for the SSD, you will definitely love it. The 6GB RAM is more than enough.

 

Another vote for the SSD.

I have a 256GB SSD in my R2 and even though the R2 is only Sata II, the SSD is incredible. Isn't the R3 Sata III? If so, you'll love the upgrade. For best performance be sure to get nothing smaller than 256GB.

One thing to consider: how much space are you using on your current HDD? That can give you some idea of what size SSD you might want to look in to.

 

SSD all the way.

 

SSD hands down.

 

I only use for gaming and only keep a few games on steam that I'm playing at the time.

SSD it is then. Think crucial website does one 256gb for around £140 is that a good price?

Also I have my windows 7 disc and alien respawn original backup from when I first started computer. Can't find my drivers disc is that a problem or can I download all I need?

Thanks in advance.

 

One point: moving from a 750GB drive to a 256GB drive is like moving from a three bedroom, two bath home to a studio apartment. You really need to manage space, but if you're only keeping a few games and the OS on there, you should be fine; however, look at your current HDD usage as an idea of what you need. If you haven't used an SSD before, check the SSD forum for lots of useful information and tricks to keeping your drive running at its best. Some may argue about this, but to keep an SSD healthy, you need to maintain a certain amount of empty space on the drive, well, not just empty space, but unallocated space. This is overprovisioning, which the drive needs for maintaining itself.

Do some reading on overprovisioning here or here or just google around a bit.

You can download all the drivers you need from Dell. Here is a nice list of all the drivers and the order of installation. You can find the R3 on there. Also, take a look at this thread for more information about doing a clean install.

I'm not too sure about the price. Maybe someone else will chime in about that. I'm running a Crucial in one of my machines now and it's great. I also have a Samsung too. They make great drives also.