upgrade Ram or Processor?

Im wondering what will improve the overall perfomance of my laptop going from the core 2 duo at 1.83 to one running at 2.0 or to go from 1 gig of RAM to 2
They both cost around the same to upgrade through dell so i need to chose one.
thanks

 

This is a no brainer. 1 to 2GB will increase the speed noticable. 1,83ghz to 2ghz will be hardly noticable except in benchmarks.

I would consider getting an after market ram upgrade. Buy 1Gb from dell and then upgrade to 2gb by buying the ram seperate. This tends to be cheaper because Dell overcharges by more then a 100%.

 

Changing the harddrive to a faster one will also improve your laptop performance.

Regarding the additional 1giga of ram, you wont notice a huge improvement unless to are planning to use memory intesive software such image edition, video editing... or planning to run several application at one.

Are you going for vista or for XP?

 

2GB RAM instead of ~200MHz will gave more performance as mentioned above. I agree with getting a fast (7200rpm HD) as well.

 

im gonna use vista will the 2 gig of RAm help vista run better?

 

Yes! more then the 0.2 extra ghz for sure.

 

Definitely. 2GHz ram helps a lot in XP too. The cheapest upgrade for performance per unit currency is ram followed by the hard disk. Cpu upgrades rarely do much as mobile cpus often don't have a giant difference between the top and bottom of the range.

 

Buying more RAM will be cheaper, easier to install and give you a better performance boost.

Its a lot cheaper to buy from other sources like newegg or manafacturer websites than buying direct from Dell.

 

I would agree on all these points.

When I got my 1210, 2gb ram upgrade was $200+, while buying 2 1gb chips from Newegg and installing them was only $150. And I still have my old 2x512 chips!

 

what kind of RAM do i have to buy?
Can some one give me a link from newegg that i can look at?

And how easy is it to install the new ram?

 

As long as you buy DDR2 SO-DIMM from a manufacturer like Kingston, OCZ, Corsair or Crucial you should be fine.

Installing RAM is very easy, just open up the laptop, pop the old chips out, pop the new chips in and close your laptop. Make sure you are well grounded when you touch the RAM or static will fry them.

 

Is 2 gigs not a bit over kill when running XP? I want to upgrade from 1 gig to 2 gig but im not really sure.

I Play games like oblivion, would i really notice the diffrence.

 

Check out crucial.com. They have a thing where you can walk through and pick what system you have, and it will tell you what type you need. It will probably be "PC2-####". Write that down, and you can shop for that type on other sites.

 

PC2-5300 or PC2-5400 RAM 200pin SoDIMM chips are what you need.

Now go to www.NewEgg.com

 

You will definitly notice it in oblivion. And if you get a 7200rpm HDD, get either the 160GB or 200GB. They are more expensive than a 100GB, but the storage space is larger (DUH) and the have higher performance,.

 

im finding 2 gig of RAM on newegg for like 65 bucks is that right. that seens cheap.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145527
take a look

 

That's 240-pin Desktop memory. You need 200-pin So-Dimm.