3GB vs. 2GB

I just purchased a Dell D630 with 1 GB ram on one dimm. I am planning on adding a second dimm upon receipt of the laptop, but cannot decide between a 1GB+1GB configuration or a 1GB+2GB configuration. I've heard there are benefits to the 1GB+1GB configuration in the sense that it allows synchronous dual-channel. However, I've also heard that synchronous dual-channel will only yield a small performance increase, so it might be better to go with the overall larger amount of ram. Should I go for the 2GB or 3GB total (I plan on running vista)? Thanks.

 

I would think more RAM is better compared to synchronous dual-channel(which I know little about). On Vista I would always recommend more RAM.

 

As far as desktop goes, Dual channel is about 5% increase in performance, so 3GB is better than 2GB...

Take it that way... if you have 2GB, for the other 1GB you could store with 3GB of memory, you need Hard Drive access, which is about 8-11ms on 7200 rpm drives. And that excludes fact that your CPU will still check if its in RAM first! So unless you plan on running very low RAM demanding OS and APPs, go for 3GB.

 

I'll second the suggestions of both of the above posters. More RAM = better. Dual-channel does not make much of a difference when it comes to the latest Intel processors because they are not super dependent on memory bandwidth.

 

look this over
at least this shows in XP 2gb is on most cases no better than 1gb.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/2gb-ram_3.html#sect1

 

It really depends what you're doing... Try loading a 1.5GB psd file in photoshop with 1GB RAM... SWAP SWAP SWAP SWAP!!!!

 

Depends on what you use your computer for.
More RAM is always better, until you no longer need it. At which point it becomes totally worthless.
If you only have at most 2GB of data "alive" at any given time, it doens't matter whether you have 2 or 200 GB RAM. Only the first 2GB will be used anyway. In that case, dual-channel might be a better option (because then those 2GB can be accessed faster)

If you have 4GB data active, dual-channel *might* still be faster. Not all data is accessed equally often. If your running applications have 4GB data loaded all in all, but the first 3.8GB are only accessed once every half hour, who *cares* if it takes a moment to access it then because it has to be swapped in from the harddrive? Again, dual-channel might be faster because it can give you a 5% performance boost the rest of the time.

So it depends entirely on what applications you run, how much memory they need, and how often it's accessed.
If you say what you use your computer for, we can try to make some guesses.

But most likely, dual-channel won't make a noticeable difference, because as Chaz said, most systems aren't that dependent on the memory bandwidth these days.

 

With VISTA, more RAM is better. Even if you don't use heavy memory programs, the OS itself caches into the RAM that is available. So 3gb will be better than 2gb, even if you have very modest demands.

 

Thanks for the advice. Since I'd like to run vista with aero glass, and will likely have outlook, excel, word, a media player of some sort, a web browser, and either photoshop or at least acrobat reader open at the same time, I think the 3GB option sounds the best. I doubt I'd really notice the 5% increase from dual channel in day-to-day operations anyway. Thanks again guys.

 

I've personally gotten better performance with 3GB over 2GB in dual-channel, and my ram is running in single channel due to the nforce chipset.

 

Quoted for truth.

I had 4GB of RAM in my ThinkPad running Vista Ultimate until one of the 2GB modules failed. When I had the 4GB, I had 1.6 - 1.8GB of RAM usage at idle. Now that I have only 2GB (waiting for the other 2GB to be repaired), my RAM usage is about 1.1GB.

 

When you have 3GB of RAM or more, you can turn off virtual memory, makes a noticeable improvement in speed.

 

Thanks all. I really appreciate all of your advice, and I'm going to go with the 3GB configuration. Thanks again.