How much performance gain would i get from going from 2 gigs to 3 gigs of ram?

System is the following.

Inspirion 1520
Jet Black
160 Gig 5400 RPM HD
8600 GT 256 MB DDR2
2 Gigs DDR2 667 Mhz Ram
1280X800 TrueLife Glossy Screen
XP PRO
Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 800 FSB 2 MB Cache

 

Since you have windows Xp, you would probably gain 0% more performance. I dont think Xp can recognize more than 2gb of memory anyways. If its windows XP X64, then thats another story.
Your machine already has plenty of power.
If it is running slow, go to the run menu, and type in msconfig.
Then go to the processes and services, and startup tab. Then shut off programs and services which you do not need or use. This will remove them from the boot registry. That means you will have faster boot times, and less resource usage. This will result in much faster performance across the board.

K-TRON

 

XP far as i know can recognize 3 gigs.

The machine is not running slow was just curious since the upgrade is so cheap.

 

well i just upgraded to 4 gigs of ram in xp. yes, i know it can only recognize 3 gigs. as far as performance, the step up from 2 to 3 is definitely noticeable. boots slightly faster, hdd avg temp went down 1-2 degrees, web pages pop up near instantaneous, supreme commander performance went up a hair and it usually shuts down/restarts a bit quicker. btw, i got 4 gigs because i plan on dual booting a 64 bit os sometime in the future.

 

What im really concerned about is games. If anyone had FPS examples of the same game on the same settings gonig from 2-3 gigs that would be the information im looking for.

 

i doubt system ram will help fps. in supreme commander though, when things get hairy midway and near the end of an episode, i have noticed or it seems my fps went up about 5. i don't know if the ram helped or not. the game was still playable at about 15-17 fps, but now it seems to be about 20-30 when things get chaotic now.

 

That's more or less information i was looking for. WHile the system does not struggle with anything i play NOW i was wondering for future purposes.

 

system ram generally won't help with games that are heavily dependent on gpu and gpu ram. rts's though, use the cpu more. i was surprised to see the ram upgrade help my system out as much as it did. i wouldn't expect any bump ups in frames in first person shooters though.

 

As pukemon has already explained so well. Don't look to RAM for what you want to improve. It is the GPU and it's onboard RAM that matter for that. And as he said he was surprised at the boosts, so am I so don't expect it. If it happens great but as I said and K-T said Should not make a difference. With the price of RAM go for it, but it is what it is.

 

a 2gb module is cheap these days anyway, it wouldnt hurt the pocket to upgrade the ram. You might wanna upgrade to vista one day, 3gb is the sweetspot

more ram usually means a snappier system and faster loading