Upgrading memory: more performance with my current system?

about two months ago I bought a new laptop. A dell vostro 1500. The thing is, since I don't live in the US, I asked a friend to buy it for me and bring it. I told him to configure it the way he deemed reasonable, but that I wanted the best graphics available. So he brought it, and it has:

Core 2 Duo T7100 1.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, rated at 4.4GHz (if compared with a single core)

Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT 256MB (I updated all the drivers) o/c at 600/475 (stable) and around 4250 3dmarks (06)

1 GB of RAM

Vista...

yep, only 1 gb of ram. I'm not saying I don't get bad performance in games, but I want to upgrade to 2.5 GB of RAM. I wanted to know if it was worth it, since I don't have a perfect CPU. So this is kind of 2 questions in one:

1. Will upgrading give me better performance (less sluttering/lagging in games?)

2. How well is my CPU in gaming? is it enough?

Thanks

 

1) With Vista, you need more than 1GB RAM. I'm sure you are suffering there at least a little bit.
2) The CPU is fine, and honestly most applications do not even use all of a CPU's power. Don't worry about it.

 

You don't need more than 1GB of RAM, however having more than 1GB makes the OS more responsive.

 

Replacing one of the 512MB sticks with a 2GB for 2.5GB would be a significant improvement over the 1GB you have now.

The T7100 is a fast processor, and games put most of the demand on the video card, so it should be more than enough

 

would suggest to ugrade the ram or else in vista you will lag to death

 

yeah i upgraded to 4gb ram and got a huge improvement. Went from 1gb xp home to 4gb vista ult x64. The cpu will not be any problem i have the 1.6, 3.1ghz rated as single core and it almost never is 100% even with doing multiple thing. When you upgrade the ram the slowest thing on your computer will be the hard drive if it is 5400rpm. At least it is that way for me it is like my hard drive cant keep up some times even with caching enabled and 0.0% fragmentaion

 

the T7100 is probably more than sufficient for your needs. I would recommend at least 2 gigs of RAM

 

Yes upgrade that to 2.5GB and you'll be set

1GB of RAM in vista is okay as long as you don't try with more lol. Switching from 1GB to 1.5 was a bigger improvement than 1.5 to 2GB though.

 

If you like to game on Vista then 2GB minimum is a common consensus from what I've read here. Otherwise serious tweaking of processes is required to free up as much RAM as possible for smooth performance.

 

You want to populate one SODIMM slot with a 512MB module, and the other with a 2GB module. That is not a good idea. If both RAM slots have the same size of SODIMM, you will have dual channel memory access, which means your memory bus will be 128 bit wide. With different size memory modules you will have single channel memory access with a 64 bit wide memory bus. Obviously the latter one is slower.

 

not by much

dual channel isn't really as great as its propped up to be

 

I got vista 32 bit with 2GB ram right now and i notice like when I'm playing Crysis that ALL my 2GB ram is in use...
So 3GB ram would be much better

And in a few weeks I'm thinking of getting 4GB ram !! but then i need vista 64 bit !!!!
So, can i use my vista 32 bit home premium OEM key (from the bottom of my laptop) to install the 64 bit home premium ???

Thanks

 

Get at least 2gig... but if you stay on XP you can do fine with 1gig... for now...

 

So would it be wiser if I just take out both 512MB sticks, and stay with only 1 2GB stick? Would that make the system perform better?