RAM - 2GB vs. 3.5GB(32 bit) = huge difference

I have 2GB RAM on my Dell 1420 with Vista 32bit and it has been running fine. However, I was doing research to see if my 1420 will run even faster to have more than 2GB. Quite a few people on different online forums said that it makes no or very little difference to go beyond 2GB. I hold off not to buy more RAM until this weekend since Fry's has 4GB (2x2GB) of PC6200 for $19.99 after rebate. So, I went ahead and got them. Boy, I can tell the difference right away.

Before, it takes a sec or 2 to open up Live Messenger, Logitech SetPoint, MS Word, MS Powerpoint. After adding 2 more GB, all of these apps would open up almost right away with very to no delay.

Therefore, if you are thinking if you should upgrade from 2GB to 4GB, GO DO IT since it is very cheap to get 4GB these days.

 

You should get Vista 64, it'll recognize all 4 GBs.

 

Quoted for truth.

You think you just made an improvement? Wait till you get Vista X64.

 

Yeah get 64bits. 32bits should be banned =P

 

Bleh. 64 bit doesn't really show any performance upgrades. Some 32 bit programs actually run slower with it. There's no reason to. The extra .5 isn't worth the incompatibility.

 

I have been running 32bit for over 1 year and I don't see a need right now to upgrade to 64bit. Can I get all the drivers for 64bit for my 1420? Please advise.

 

64 bit is just fine. I've been using Vista x64 for over a year and I have not run into a single compatibility issue with any of my hardware, drivers, games, or other software. I highly recommend the upgrade to 64-bit for anyone with a compatible processor, even if they don't have 4GB of RAM.

The Dell support page for the Inspiron 1420 only shows drivers for Vista 32-bit and XP, unfortunately. If I were you, I would try installing a 64-bit version of Windows (like the Windows 7 beta x64) on a separate partition of your hard drive, and see if the Vista 32-bit drivers work. If they work on Windows 7 x64, then they'll work on Vista x64 for sure.

 

Of course the 32 bit drivers won't work, this is a terrible suggestion that you should not follow.


You won't have even the slightest issue finding 64 bit drivers for you Inspiron 1420, many people on this forum have installed Vista X64 on their Inspiron 1520 and 1420s. You just have to do a little bit of research on what hardware you have and then get the drivers from the hardware manufacturer, or in some cases, from another Dell with the same hardware that Dell does support 64 bit on.

 

That's why I suggested installing the beta on a separate partition. If he mucks everything up, his 32-bit Vista partition will still be just fine.

I'm not an expert on drivers by any means; I was just throwing out ideas. What Hep says makes sense, though; you should definitely be able to find 64-bit drivers for your hardware, but directly from the manufacturer rather than from Dell.

 

Is 64 bit going to make it much faster? If so, by how much? Thanks

 

64-bit optimized programs will certainly show improvement, and your overall system performance will definitely benefit from the rest of that 4GB of RAM unlocked.

32-bit applications will run just the same as they always have.

 

You have no idea of the power of x64 and 4GB of ram, with other good hardware of course. I just turned off my page file to see how far I could push my system. I was able to have Messenger, Firefox, Adobe Reader, Photoshop, Internet Explorer, Zune Media player, Media Center, Windows 7 running in a virtual machine with 800MB allocated, Webcam, a Word document, Kaspersky running a full scan, Sidebar and fingerprint software. I was able to keep this up for a steady 20 minutes before my ram usage started spiking up to 89% and windows gave me a warning. I started closing stuff 2 minutes after. So long story short, I definitely recommend x64 and 4GB of ram.

 

It is tempting to get 64 bit Vista. What drivers do I need to look for after installing 64 bit?

Let's say I create another partition on my existing drive to install 64 bit as suggested by another user. Once I get everything up and running smoothly, how do I get rid of the 32 bit partition and boot straight into 64 bit? Also, will the Media Direct partition work still?

 

Hmmmm............
As far as I can tell, what is happening is that the OS is prefetching programs to the RAM, hence you see the decrease in program startup time.
Once the programs are opened however, the increased ram should play only a very minor role for most apps.

But I do agree that since ram is so cheap, why not upograde .

 

Could somebody tell me what the best way is to accomplish what was quoted about? Appreciate that.

 

Unless you've got 2 vista keys I don't think you'll be able to have both installed at one time. When reinstalling vista will be able to delete the partition if you so choose. Alternatively, once in x64 you should be able to use the windows built in partition utility and delete x86. Open a run box and type diskmgmt.msc.

The drivers depend on your notebook but vista will usually be able to find your drivers. If you're not comfortable doing a full reinstall I recommend reading up on it more. Media Direct? I don't know. If it's version 4 it's pretty much useless, get rid of it.

 

Thanks. But I am thinking that I will wait till Windows 7. It is a huge hassle to reinstall all my apps and configure everything from scratch. It is pretty fast now with the added ram. I don't think it will double the speed with x64.

 

I guess it's fine for you. Some programs and games I played would get stuck at 8 FPS - 16 FPS max because of 64 bit. It was just a 2D sidescrolling game that could run with integrated graphics. In 32 bit, over 60 FPS could run on the same system. I used to play it a lot, and it was just a deal breaker. I remember some other programs also being annoying and not working, however, I don't remember them anymore, it's been about 6 months since I've used 64 bit Vista Ultimate.

 

According to my own performance logs with Perfmon, I see no substantial gain in performance moving from x86 to x64. Then again, I don't see any substantial decline in performance either.