Will XP run faster with 2GB than with 1GB? when you're using < 1GB.

Simple question, will XP run faster with 2GB instead of 1GB when my memory usage is less than 1GB?

Does anyone have some benchmarks?

 

No. It'll not increase your peformance.

What kind of benchmark are you looking for?

 

I have no benchmarks but I can state that it makes very little difference in XP. The only difference is when you are loading in memory hog programs like Flight Simulator X or huge spreadsheets. Even then 1GB is usually fine in XP. With Vista 1 to 2GB makes a difference.

I prefer the memory manager in Vista over XP.

 

I believe the same as you jackluo923. Reason I'm asking is that there are quite a few people that claim that their Atom netbook with XP runs faster with 2GB.

The benchmarks I'd like to see would be to validate what is the truth. Could be any application.

 

Well id also wonder if the benchmarks themselves are pushing ram usage up. If the used ram doesnt go over say 600 mb i wouldnt worry about it but ive found that when ram gets up around 83% windows actually starts to dump things from the ram and let it fall back on the page file.

A real test of if your ram is enough is finding out how many page faults per second are occuring. A page fault is when a program trys to access the data in ram and had to fall back on the page file because it was dumped from ram.

 

XP itself? Probably not... but you are going to run programs on XP, right? So it depends on what you're running... and programs lately are starting to use more and more RAM... I'm on Vista but I often see Firefox taking up 300+ MB and I think IE 8 is similar... and Chrome... and I imagine they use a similar amount of RAM on XP... and if you have a few other memory-hog programs going too, then I can believe you'd get more swapping with 1 gb RAM than with 2 gb.

So, basically, I would say that it depends on usage.

 

Interesting. Where can I see how many page faults are occuring?

 

Phil stated that if the memory ussage is below 1GB, would you get performance increase of its upgraded to 2GB. When you're using Vista, after upgrading to 2GB, the OS will preload things to it thus using more ram.

Well... if the user is using like 850-900MB of ram out of 1GB, there will be slight performance increase if its upgraded to 2GB. The performance drop is due to Windows XP purging some of the memory to the page file to prevent "buffer overflow".
There are multiple registry "hack" that you can perform to prevent the performance drop by making Windows Xp use ever last drop of ram before beginning to purge its memory.

 

Resource monitor should be in xp if i remember right. In vista there is a button for it on the performance tab of ctrl at delete.

 

Somewhere here?

 

In XP ur probably gonna have to go looking for it if i have to ill boot into it but uh i dunnohere is the vista/7 one - http://teamnirvana.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/resource-monitor.jpg Im looking for where XP's is i swear it had a cruddier but still had one.

Looks like im wrong chalk 1 win up for vista. There should still be an alternative. I knew about this way before i used vista....

EDIT - This was mentioned somwhere tho

 

Whoops.

ok, then no, as long as by going from 1 gb to 2 gb you didn't also happen to go from single-channel to dual-channel (or otherwise alter the RAM speed or latency or anything like that).

 

Just click run or windows key + R
then type in perfmon.msc
I'll bring up the performance monitor.

XP's performance monitor is primative thus it's not as useful as the one in Vista or 7.

 

EDIT NVM - Do the above lol, might have to configure it but it looks like it does have the data i was telling u about.

 

Thanks, very interesting.

Now and then Firefox spikes above 1000, but it goes down very quickly. I guess that's not a problem?

 

if its just firefox and the overall ram usage is not high its nothing. Its normal for a background process or data thats not being used to fall back to its page file copy.

Its when current foreground processes are constantly page faulting that you know you have an issue, though I am no expert I just use alot of ram lol. My last laptop was 64 bit and p'd me off that it only support 2gb of ram on the mobo i was like wut. Only paid little over 400 for it a couple of years ago but my vm needed the ram.

I have 4GB only using 40% at this second and i have one process gets a few soft page faults and another that gets like 45. Though other then a quick flash im getting 0 hard faults/s which is very good.

 

LOL.. when I'm using VM, my ram ussage (4gb ram) spike up to 95% and page file is usually above 6GB. Vista doesn't lag even running Ram hungry. LOL

On my netbook, I have 1GB. To combat the lack of ram issue on Windows 7, I use a combination of readyboost and eboostr and now it feels like I have 4GB of ram on my netbook. The netbook remains responsive even if the ram is 99% used and is constantly paging/swaping in rare occasions.

 

Heh i would upgrade to 8GB but stuff is mad expensive right now. I cant live lower then 3 anymore.

 

8GB (4x2GB) only cost $30CAD or $25USD last month here in Canada. LOL Right now, it's probably $40-50CAD.

 

WHERE! LOL. Ive looked at 4x2 kits are 300 dollars and 4GB sticks are around 150. Meanwhile I can get 2x2 CL5 DDR2-800 Kingston HyperX kits for 50 bucks.

 

4x2GB kits are 4 2GB sticks.

The lowest 1x4GB stick is $40 from NCIX.

Mann.. the price has increased dramatically.

2x2GB DDR2 800mhz kits are now above $40 each.
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=27526&vpn=PVS24G6400LLK&manufacture=Patriot&promoid=1046


These 2x2GB DDR2 800 kits were on sale on newegg for $13 a week ago.

 

Sorry meant 2 x 4GB http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=37073&vpn=VS8GSDSKIT800D2&manufacture=Corsair
All i see in 800 Mhz 2 x 4? 480 CAD

800Mhz might be the killer there lol not enough good ram chips floating around to make cheap 4GB Sticks.

 

There used to be aneon 1x4GB DDR2800 sticks for $40 before NCIX discontinued the product. Should've bought 4 of them so I can have 16GB of ram on my desktop.

 

Desktop ram makes me jealous i wish there was some 1066 mhz notebook ram so i could take the overclock on this T9600 going in this week a bit further then 3.2 Ghz. Right now i feel the ram is the limit of my overclock.

I might pickup a netbook sooner or later i wanted to get a bareones but their too expensive couldnt find one for 250-300 lol was hoping someone was clearing out an older model. I have a P7450 a 160gb and 1gb of ddr2 667mhz laying around.

I dunno about phil bit if its not an expense id just max the ram on the netbook with my current ram setup being 50 bucks 2gb has to be cheap.

 

Both my ddr2 667mhz and ddr2 800mhz desktop ram can do 1200mhz with 1.9v vidmm. LOL They're all based on Micron D9 chips, the best of the best.
That'll get you jealous even more

 

It's only 20 euros but if it's pointless I won't.

I usually browse with 10 tabs, my memory usage comes no where near 1GB.

 

Id forget about it then i just came off my inbetween computer which was a Pentium II 450 @ 504mhz running XP with initially 382mb of ram but I upgraded to 786 and then had to track down a 10 year old bios update to support it. Played Ages of Empires on it no problem lol. Didnt really monitor the ram usage but it seemed to be fine as a basic computer. I was running a compiler that requires a 1.6 Ghz processor lol.

 

My worst laptop was IBM thinkpad 600x with 333mhz processorm, 128MB of ram hapily running windows XP. It had problem supporting over 256MB of ram i think. LOL

 

I have done tons of 1 to 2GB upgrades on many different laptops and even a desktop or two. To me, it makes a noticeable difference on XP, and a COLOSSAL difference on Vista Things just appear to open up faster though this is strictly experience and not backed up by any benchies at all.