Will 3GB RAM be much difference to 4GB RAM?

Hi,

I have an ASUS X5DIJ which has:

Celeron Dual Core CPU T3100 @ 1.90GHz
Installed memory (RAM): 2.0GB
64-Bit operating system
- 140GB Free of 220GB Hard drive


As i multitask with internet browsing, itunes, microsoft word, which all open at start up i can see how slow it all takes to load up.

So i want to upgrade my 2gb RAM,
ASUS Customer service told me my laptop had a capacity of up to 8GB RAM,. so i am thinking of buying a 4GB RAM(1 Card)

watching this RAM upgrade video of my model laptop it looks like there is only one card space for ram though? is there 2gb ram built into the laptop with one spare additional ram port?
:
Expand RAM in ASUS X5DIJ-SX018L - YouTube


Will 3GB RAM be much different to 5GB RAM on my ASUS laptop for the multitasking i do? will i benefit in other ways?
as a single 4gb ram card costs double what a 2gb ram card costs

thanks

 

buy 2 2gb sticks or 1 4gb... there will be some difference between 2-3gb but not much, especially with a 64bit OS.


I would recommend 1 4gb just because if you want to upgrade later you only have to buy another 4gb stick. IMO the $10 premium for 1 4gb over 2x2gb is worth it...




IMO you should also look into a CPU upgrade, the t3100 is super slow...

 

thanks whitrzac,

i just opened the laptop up and there is only one free empty RAM port,
i put in a 1gb ram so now have 3gb and notice some slight improvement in speed.

will 4gb ram really make much of a dfifference compared to 3gb- i can buy a 2gb ram so would then have 4gb.

Do things still load with 4GB or is it just alot quicker to load programs?

 

No, 3GB will be plenty for your usage pattern.

 

With your relatively low performance cpu, the more RAM you can throw at your system, the (much) better the performance.

With Win7x64 less than 4GB RAM is a criminal offence!

I would install the 4GB RAM module (you should have 6GB total...) and really see what your system is capable of.

Good luck.

 

Look at his usage "internet browsing, itunes, microsoft word"

Advising him to buy 6GB is a criminal offence

 

Considering that 'internet browsing' by itself can consume a few gigs of RAM (depending on how many tabs/instances we're talking about) and the fact that the price difference from a 2GB to a 4GB module is less than a couple of Starbuck coffees, then advising him to do a 'side-ways' upgrade (side-grade?) is the real crime.

Btw, he has 2GB installed already (soldered in?) and can upgrade one slot to 2GB or 4GB module to get the 6GB capacity (he has a 1GB module right now for 3GB total, if I read correctly...).

So the decision is one 2GB stick or one 4GB stick - with Win7x64 as a given, the 6GB 'total' capacity is the easy winner.

 

Last year I worked several weeks with an Acer 1830t with 2GB and Windows x64. It worked flawless even with 30 tabs open, wmp and some other apps.

3GB will be fine for his usage. If he likes to spend more money there is a point to be made for 4GB. 6GB is a waste of money with his usage pattern.

so for the question "Will 3GB RAM be much difference to 4GB RAM?" the easy answer is "No it's very unlikely you'll ever notice the difference with your usage pattern."

 

+1 more.

Especially on lower-powered computers, you won't be bottlenecked by RAM very often. 3GB is all you'll need, really. My brother's Core i7-920 and GTX 275 desktop played Crysis, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Portal, and TF2 perfectly fine with just 3GB of RAM (only recently upgraded to 9GB). You'll see no difference between 3GB and 4GB. I barely noticed any difference between 2GB and 4GB on my T500.

 

This answer has been nailed over and over again so without repeating it basically you need to remember that in modern laptops if you install two SODIMM's that are of the same specification but of different capacity then only part of the memory will run in dual channel mode while the other the remaining amount will run in single channel mode. Intel calls this flex memory technology.

In the case of 3GB, 2GB will run in dual channel mode while the left over 1GB will run in single channel mode.

You'll get slightly less memory bandwidth and hence inferior system performance but not to the extent you would likely be bothered about it. I say if you're not bothered about maximum performance then go with 3GB, if you are go with 2x2GB SODIMM's.

See the following link:
Will my memory un in dual channel mode if I install a 2GB DDR2 SODIMM and a 1GB DDR2 SODIMM?

In the case of 3GB VS 4GB. For most normal use 3GB is still okay, unless you multitask a lot, in which case 4GB or even 8GB would be much better.

 

browsing surprisingly can take up lots of memory overtime. I am constrained to 4GB on a 32bit machine and have to periodically force close IE to reclaim the memory. Experience same thing with chrome as well.

So i would say popular as many as one can if it is DDR3 as they are cheap(I bought 2x4GB for 40 bucks).

 

thanks for all the replies,

I Thinik io will buy a 2gb RAM which would = 4gb ram, and hopefully this will speed up my booting time and multitasking.

I do always have 5-6 open tabs in google chrome browser.

based on the current prices:
2GB RAM = £15
4GB RAM = £45

This is the exact RAM spec i need for my laptop:

DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHZ SODIMM 200PIN


i have seen DDR3 RAMS on ebay and they are like half the price of DDR2s, would a DDR3 work on my laptop?

 

If you're not sure what RAM your laptop requires then you can use the Crucial tool or scanner through that link I pasted in above.

If you know for a fact you need DDR2 then no, unfortunately DDR3 SODIMM's won't work given that the former are 200pin while the latter 204pin and the electrical schema is also different.

DDR2 will be more expensive than DDR3 purely due to supply, most fabs now produce DDR3 chips given that their mainstream now and DDR2 is defunct now.

 

Unfortunately a RAM upgrade will not improve your boot time. Applications like iTunes or Word won't launch faster either. And I also doubt it will do anything for what you call multi tasking. It seems far more likely the storage is the bottleneck in your usage.

To improve performance in the way you described a hard drive upgrade will have much more effect. A fast single platter 320GB 7200rpm hard drive starts at ~26 pounds: Samsung SpinPoint MP4 320 GB Internal hard drive - 300 MBps - 7200 rpm

Or for ~ 50 pounds you can get the 640GB version.

You could sell your current hard drive, or keep it and put in an external enclosure.

Not that upgrading to 4GB is a bad idea, it just won't improve much considering your current usage pattern.

That confirms it, 3GB is more than enough for your usage.

 

thanks ,

i think i will just buy a 2gb ram from ebay and see if increasing to 4gb helps speed up multitasking,

phil - i wont bother getting a new harddriv3e as i will probably buy a new laptop in a years time, this one is pretty basic hardware, but then for what i use it for its enough/

thanks

 

^^^ One other thing that may help is a clean install of windows especially if you are running the OS as it is loaded at the factory by ASUS.

 

Yes clean install is a good idea, it can really help performance.

 

If you really want to upgrade , I suggest you get a new hard drive like a 500GB one from Seagate or Western Digital. RAM wise , I'd get 2 2GB sticks to get 4GB total. You can sell your 2 1GB sticks. Also reinstall windows. I've done that recently and it always speed up the computer.