Should i ugrade to 2Gb ram??

Hi all!

im new to this website, so pardon me if this is a repition for you, but i do need some advice!

Currently i have a notebook with 1Gb DDR2 ram at 667 Mhz. For a little background, its a dell inspiron E1705 Core Duo at 2Ghz, Geforce 7800 ( ) and the afore mentioned 1 Gb DDR2 ram.

It runs pretty sweetly, playing everything from Half life 2 to Tiberium wars on max resolution of 1920x1200 with the goodies turned up, but i've started using many different programs that are chewing up the RAM, namely VOIP services... anyway, i saw a deal on shop.kingston selling 2Gbs of the same memory for about $120, and i thought
a) that a good price and b) its worth it.

if i do not plan to upgrade to Vista, do you think its a worthwhile investment for my gaming pleasure, as that is my most intensive use.

thanks!

 

Personally, yes. I'm running 2GB in XP and have been quite happy with performance. It also gives me the option to run Vista smoothly should I choose to do so.

 

I would definitely recommend the upgrade, it make your system, faster, more reliable and more responsive.

As you already have a 1GB stick, you don't a 2GB stick. You just need one 1GB DDR2-667 Module of RAM. Just make sure all specifications are the same as the RAM module you have now.

 

Hi,
you might want to have a look at this recent article:

http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=61

According to this guide increasing your RAM to 2GB using WIndows XP actually reduces performance in most scenarios. Windows Vista however, is a different matter. I can actually endorse the findings regarding my desktop PC running XP. I increased my RAM from 1 to 2 GB and Super PI is actually now about a second slower.

Ergo it be an idea to just wait until/if you actaually migrate to Vista.

 

thank you for that different perspective!!!

however, it says:

"The real benefit of 2GB of RAM comes from what AMD calls 'megatasking', where the user runs multiple high-memory-usage programs at a time."

i did mention that my primary ram consumption is games, so would it classify as "megatasking"?

 

Games will always love more RAM...fact of life.

I've run with 2GB of ram on XP for some time now, and it definitely does not degrade performance for me.

 

The real benefit of more physical RAM is to reduce the usage of the relatively slow virtual memory on the HDD. If, when you swap applications which are already open, there is a delay and much HDD activity then you will benfit from more RAM.

Load up and run all your favourite applications and then look in Task Manager to see you much memory your applications are using. It is the first number after Commit Charge. You can also look on the processes page and see how much virtual memory your applications are using (you may need to add the appropriate column under the view menu).

John

 

I do not think so. I am not much of a gamer but my understanding from what I have read is that most games are not multithreaded (yet), so unless you are playing a game and encoding a video at the same time, you would probably not really be multitasking. On the other hand, that might soon change if new games are going to be multithreaded, and going by the really slight difference in performance I experienced with my PC (I did not "bother" to remove the 1 GB either, although I could have, as I have 4X512 MB), I suppose you might as well futureproof yourself with a deal! Just don't expect anything to really change now regarding your laptops performance!

 

Hi all

With some more searching i found an even better deal: 2Gb of corsair ram (same specs) at newegg for $60!!! (after $40 rebate)

rebate hassles aside, thats major attractive!!

Im thinking of getting it...

thanks for your comments, although if anyone else has more to offer i'd appreciate it!

thanks

 

Agreed. I have 2GB in my system (up from 1GB) and my performance actually increased a good bit in multitasking because I tend to have streaming high def video, two audio programs, tons of FF tabs, a few remote desktops, Word 2007, IMs, etc. That all takes a good bit of memory and system resources. My page file never gets touched, though, which is beautiful.

 

on my system with lower resolution and settings oblviion with xp uses 1.5 gb ram

I use just over 1 gb ram regularly

so if you are worried about the money, get 1 gb dim for like 60$ and go to 1.5 gb first.

dual channel means nothing so dont worry about that.