2GB to 3GB Ram - worth it??

I have a Toshiba X205 laptop with 2GB of Ram. If I upgrade to 3GB will it be a noticable difference? I use my laptop for playing games and AutoCad. Thanks for any advice.

 

Why not 4GB? If you're already planning on upgrading, I doubt an extra $35 will break the bank. Unless an X205 only one user-accessible slot.

 

Probably, but not a big difference. RAM is cheap, though. So it might be worth it to you. Just don't expect a big difference.

 

If you are running Vista, you will notice a decent performance increase, going from 2 to 3 or more gigs of memory.

Vista likes to cache itself and all of the programs, making Vista a memoy hog. The more memory the better.

Keep in mind if you have a 32 bit copy of Vista, your computer will only be able to see at most 3.2-3.6Gb of memory.
You would need a 64 bit operating system to see the entirety of 4gb of memory

K-TRON

 

If you are using Vista, 3GB is definitely the sweet spot.

 

I agree. I did notice a bump in day to day performance going to 3gb. Everything just runs smoother. Its not blazing faster...but its smoother.

 

I had a big performance boost when i upgraded from 2gb to 4gb (32bit).. even though it only read 3gb the improvment was big. well my experience anyway...

 

I swapped from 2 to 3gb constantly on my c90 and cant say that I really noticed a difference between the two. I never get my ram even half used up with just 2gb unless I do something like video editing or play a game.

I got a really good chance to see because I was literally 2gb one day and 3 the next back and forth for over 2 weeks until I finally settled with just 2 so I would have seen/felt the change.

I really optimize my system tho, I block every startup program/service I do not use, and have all my updates installed ect.

Shame I cant agree with everybody else it would make my life easier on the forums

Still I would like 3gb for video editing, ram preview and things like that are pure ram dependant so I may swap back to 3gb for awhile and pay very close attention to see if I notice any changes.

 

USMC I am not sure you are disagreeing as you state applications where you see a difference. You also explain doing a lot of optimizing. I don't know if AutoCad uses much RAM but if it does 3GB would help and if you don't want to do lots of house cleaning also. Do you see a lot of HDD hits when not doing things you would expect HDD hits? If so more should help.

 

No I cant say I notice any page file use with just the 2gb of ram. I have not been gaming tho just web surfing and litening to music and some photo/video editing.

When playing a game I have never taken the time to watch my HDD light, but I can say I have not noticed any perceivable difference from 2 or 3gb while playing a game and I know what to look for. Usually a "studder" when data has to come from the HDD instead of the ram, or a pause in loading textures ect.

I think this has alot to do with the idea of the settings I use to play on a laptop 1200x800 with medium settings is not nearly the same kind of ram hog as say 1920x1080 and medium/high that I use on my desktop. I can definitly see a difference in gaming on my desktop with more ram, but for notebooks I dont think its as much of a priority (also I have 512mb of video card ram in this monster)

I have always been the one to say ram is the first thing to upgrade tho because it is so important, and you can never have too much, and its so incredibly cheap right now.

 

for XP... no
for vista... yes

 

Can anybody recommend a good brand of RAM? I would buy 2x2GB sticks at 667MHz. I've seen Crucial are doing that for £55 or so. Are they a 'better than average' brand - i.e. reasonably fast?

I don't care about getting the fastest, but something that will help my games more than the absolute cheapest RAM would be nice

 

hot ram deals thread in the notebook deals forum section.

 

RAM functions as rated Mhz and CL determine speed. Yes Crucial is considered good. Really all you will find is good just find good price and lifetime warranty.