Is more RAM always better?

I have the following sticks of RAM:

2GB DDR2 PC2-5300
512MB DDR2 PC2-5300

Which configuration would yield the best results?

2GB alone, or 2GB + 512MB?

For me I figure 2.5GB is surely better than 2GB alone... but i'm worried about pairing mismatched sticks. Google didn't help much on this.

The primary uses of the laptop are web browsing, streaming video, emails, itunes, etc.

 

take out the 512 and wait for a sale on a matching 2gb.

 

Matching sticks doesn't matter. How much RAM you have does matter. The more the merrier.

 

Don't worry about pairing mismatched sticks.

 

No it isn't always better, but usually it is.

Adding the extra 512MB will have a negligible overhead and if you ever need to use it a significant improvement in performance.

 

IMO, base on your usage, 512MB will not make any difference.

 

Having the RAM be matching only matters if you're doing dual/triple/quad channel configurations. When using each stick individually (old school "single channel"), then you can mix and match different sized DIMMs to your hearts desire pretty much, and there shouldn't be performance penalty for doing so. The things that will cause performance problems though, are running sticks of different speeds or timings, because the system will default to the weakest link and run it all at the speed of the slowest DIMM.

If your system supports dual/triple/quad channel, then it does offer performance advantages in memory bandwidth sensitive applications and it can bottleneck modern processors by not using the proper memory configuration. In your case though, you don't even have enough matching DIMMs to enable these modes, so it won't matter.

 

More RAM is always better.

Matched RAM is the best.

Mismatched modules can give random and unpredictable errors in some programs.

For your use noted above, the 2.5GB RAM will make a marked improvement over time in a Vista or Win7 system (as long as you haven't disabled SuperFetch, etc.).

If you have Win7x64 installed that can take advantage of the full 4GB of RAM, when you are ready to upgrade to 4GB, I recommend you buy two matching sticks and sell what you have (after thoroughly testing with multiple instances of memtest overnight first).

Good luck!

 

One 2Gb stick will only run single channel.
2+512 in together will run async dual channel, not as fast as sync dual which is what you get in matched sticks.

The only way that both could be slower is if the 512 RAM has much looser timings, which would force the 2Gb stick to run at those lower timings but even then the boost from the async DC would offset that.

 

Only the newer Core i5/i7 will run in dual-channel with mismatched DIMMs, old systems (probably all that use DDR2) will operate in single channel mode.

 

No, asynchronous dual-channel has been a part of Intel's memory controllers for quite some time now.

Also asynchronous dual-channel tries to use dual channel when it can, but reverts to single channel most of the time. Luckily dual-channel does not have the kind of impact on performance it used to have, and is almost negligible for most cases today.

And as far as running matched sticks for dual channel, the only matching that needs to be done is with the amount of memory in each bank.

 

So glad I made this thread... you guys are an awesome wealth of info... thanks so much!

 

The link below likely explains this and various other laptop memory questions you're likely to have, but generally speaking it's most optimum if you only mix SODIMM's of the same capacity. This way dual channel mode will run synchronously instead of asynchronously. All the RAM will benefit from the bandwidth boost offered by dual channel. Bandwidth still influences overall system performance however it largely depends on the software. For example office software doesn't really benefit from more bandwidth, but audio/video, games software usually proves otherwise.

Single and dual channel operation

 

Use it. It will not generate errors. At worse it will revert to single channel. Even with games or audio/video, you might get a 5% performance improvement.

Chances are your system might not use it, if you give your machine light use, but it won't really hurt anything.