Is it worth getting 4gb of ram for 1530

Is it worth getting 4gb of ram for the 1530 with a 32bit OS?

 

Nope...it won't use more than about 3.2-3.5GB. Just get 3GB and you're fine.

 

With 4GB, you'll be in dual channel. 3GB is fine, though, and I doubt you'll notice the lack of dual channel.

Of course, it does make it very painful to hibernate. And Vista being the way it is, it wants to load everything into memory after you boot up, so booting up is more sluggish than when I had less memory.

 

The difference between 3.0 and 3.2 GB RAM is minimal Zahn, you won't notice a difference.

As for the dual channel thing....the performance penalty is around 1-3%. On a part of the notebook that isn't 100% utilized most of the time anyway, so it isn't a bother.

Hibernation issues are the fault of the OS, not the type or quantity of RAM. And you can turn SuperFetch off you know, which would speed your system resume time up significantly.

 

get it with 1GB,
then buy 3gb from anywhere else other than dell...
else, just get the 3gb

 

Yep. Might as well get 3 GB since the OS can't even utilize the entire 4 GB.

 

Bottom line:
Get 3GB or 4GB....whichever is cheaper as per our RAM Deals thread.

 

I recommend getting it with 4GB of RAM from the get go IF you're getting the "best" configuration which (from what I have seen) is usually cheaper than getting just 1GB in terms of total cost to you.

Ex. I got T8300, 1440x900, 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200rpm HDD, intel-N card, bluetooth, 3-year warranty and lo-jack, dvd/cd-rw, and a usb mouse for $1,450 after taxes.

 

To say 3GB is not in Dual Channel is incorrect, it is "flex memory" and as Greg said sure if 4GB's is cheaper sure why not, but it is not.

 

i have 4gb and it not any different from 2 gb except when i have a momery hog program there is a difference in performance

also after putting the computer in hibernate there is alot of memory leaks

 

You actually get 3.5 gb if you install 4 gb on your 1530.

At least, that's what I got. Windows listed RAM as 3.5 gb. And when I ran multiple iterations of memtest, Task Manager told me I was using 3.4-3.5 gb of RAM.

But anyway, I switched to x64 soon after.

 

dylJ me too.

 

Get the 4GB as Sir Travis D advises. The 32-bit o/s will only see 3.5GB but the remainder will still be utilized by hardware such as the video card.

Eventually you'll get the bug to step up to a 64-bit o/s which will fully benefit from the 4GB of RAM and provide more performance gains from the processor. But for a laptop that can't go past 4GB of memory it's not really necessary, imo.

 

unless ur running 64bit, it is not worth it. You won't be able to notice much of the extra 512mb with 32bit

 

If you're going to run a 32-bit OS, then it's not really worth it to get 4 GB instead of 3 GB of RAM. On my M1530, 32-bit Vista sees 3.5 GB RAM.

I'm planning on installing 64-bit Ubuntu 8.04, which will be able to see the full 4 GB.

I got the extra GB because it was so cheap, and because I can use it when I run a 64-bit OS.

 

Just get the 4 gigs. RAM is cheap nowadays and also suppose you get a 64 bit OS in the future. With the M1530 it recognizes around 3589Mb of RAM in a 32 bit OS, I have it personally.

 

Get 4 GB. Why limit yourself when it costs $30 per 2 GB?

You will get dual-channel performance on the 1 GB on both sticks, regardless, but dual-channel's performance edge is a very minimal difference over single-channel.

Also, with Vista x86 I believe you are entitled to install the same edition of x64 instead of x86. If you do, you want to get 4 GB, not 3 GB.

Finally, the M133O and most likely the M153O, too, will address 3.5 GB of RAM, not 3.25 like older chipsets do, so even for the extra .5 GB of RAM, I think it's worth getting the full 4 GB.