Is it worth upgrading from 1 to 2GB of RAM?

Is it worth upgrading my W3V from 1GB to 2GB of RAM? I am currently running Vista, which is running beautifully, but I would like to get a year or two more out of my W3V ... at least until Asus comes out with a sexier 14.1" form factor. Or, would you suggest upgrading another component, like the processor?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

I would say it's definately worth it if you're running vista.

 

If Vista is running beautifully, and if programs load fast, then I do not see any reason to upgrade to 2GB RAM.

 

If you're looking for something to blow cash on, more RAM is always a good choice. As to whether you 'need' it, probably not as bad as you might think.

 

Definately..read this http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=3

 

Memory is the best "bang for the buck" upgrade you can do. If Vista is running alright for you, I'd wait. Memory will get cheaper as time wears on.

 

If you can afford it, yes. Otherwise, hold off - and as vespoli said - it will get cheaper as time elapses, and the need for it becomes more.

 

RAM isn't exactly one of the more expensive upgrades out there... 1gb is gonna cost you $130 *max* after tax and shipping. Definately recommended if you do anything more than browse the web and type documents.

 

If you're perfectly happy with they way the machine is running, then I don't see any reason to upgrade just for the sake of upgrading; however, if you do want to upgrade, RAM would be the first choice.

 

You can buy a 1 GB stick of 200-pin DDR2 off Newegg for about $80 now (add shipping, about $85). It's a very affordable upgrade, if you decide to purchase another stick.

If you're running very memory intensive programs, such as rendering, video editing, etc., or just running multiple programs at the same time, or playing games that require a high amount of RAM (Battlefield 2, FEAR, Oblivion, and other more modern games run much smoother with 2 GB of RAM), then I feel the upgrade is worth it.

 

i'm running vista on 1 gb of ram and it seems fine to me. you might want to hold off until you feel that ur notebook is beginning to feel sluggish. save you money too

 

Up to you really, especially if your current setup is working beautifully. Superfetch however will benefit from 2GB of RAM...in fact the more the better. That's true in any OS, but more so in Vista than others.

 

I would say that you will notice the difference with 1.5 gb so if you have 512 mb dimms you will notice the difference upgrading one of them.

I have 2 gb but i rarely go aver 1.2 gb usage.

Running oblivion in vista, that is around 1.2 gb memory resident with the game and vista

 

I would say yes with Vista... The more memory you have the better vista will put the rest of your memory into good use.

No matter how many GB's of ram you have, vista will use most of the remaining memory for cache. Run task manager and see the amount of physical memory left.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

 

Buy a $20 two GB Vista Ready USB key, plug it in and set it up for ReadyBoost and then you'll have 3 GB of RAM when you need it

Cat

 

Does the ReadyBoost work the same way as the RAM?

 

There's no substitute for RAM. ReadyBoost is a good way to supplement Superfetch, and will raise your performance. But it will not surpass actually having the RAM.

 

ReadyBoost is a cheap way to avoid using the hard drive as a cache. It is much faster to read off a qualified (not every one out there is fast enough) USB2.0 stick than from just about any notebook HDD. Of course its not as good as having the actual RAM, but when you run out of RAM it will put what the contents of part of the RAM onto the HDD in the swap file and thats not good at all for the HDD or performance.

As part of my job, I've worked with systems with 512mb that would boot Vista in about 6-7 minutes (with a full preload) and if I hook up a ReadyBoost USB key and (the spare I have is 2GB) the system now boots in about 3 minutes max. So it definitely helps. A system with 1 GB of RAM inside would boot about 30 seconds faster.

512mb is of course too little for Vista, but some companies have decided to ship half their 'Vista Ready' systems with just that much...not naming any names tho, but its not ASUS...

If you have a spare key though or want one and have $20 to spare definitely give that a try

Cat

 

Not that I didn't know this before, but the community of Asus users here is amazing! Thanks, everyone, for all you help!

Since everything is running smoothly, I think I will wait to upgrade my RAM. Hopefully the money I save can go towards a new Asus notebook. I'm so anxious for their next 14.1 W3-esque notebook.

I'm not sure about ReadyBoost, as its benefits are not as clear with 1GB of RAM installed, or so I read.

Again, thanks for everyone's input!

 

Ya 1GB is fine for now

And I agree with that article completely, it is totally right and it confirms me too

It deals with upgrading from 512-1GB, which is really essential. And it also states how the USB did do much better. If you're going to be using more than 1 GB of RAM only occasionally and are on a budget ReadyBoost is good to use

"
Although an additional USB 2.0 Flash memory device clearly helps to increase application responsiveness at launch time (we've experienced time savings in this area of up to 50% , upgrading an average computer from 512 MB to at least 1 GB of RAM makes a huge difference."

 

RE: the boot time you stated- is that timed from the BIOS boot screen to the end of windows' accessing the drive?

 

I can only confirm this. I bought a 2Gb USB stick yesterday. It's a Kingston, with nice logos of "Vista ReadyBoost Compatible". Stick it in, Vista right away offered to create the ReadyBoost cache on it.

Although I have 2Gb of system memory, I still feel the good effects of ReadyBoost. For example when applications are minimized for a long time and then restored they sometimes tend to start working from the HD without ReadyBoost - because they got swapped to disk. After playing some heavy games and exiting, other minimized applications might need some time to recover. Add ReadyBoost, and all these delays are gone for good.

To answer the initial queestion: if your system is running fine now with 1Gb of RAM, a USB2.0 stick to use with ReadyBoost is worth investing in.