Worth the upgrade?

[Tygur]

I decided to post this question here and see what you people think:

I currently have 384 MB of DDR memory (256+128). I'm considering taking out the 128 and putting a 512. So in the end, I'd have 768 MB of memory.

Will there be a noticable improvement in performance? Will it be worth the cost of the memory?

My current system specs (minus the ram and anything I forgot to include):
FIC AD11 Motherboard
900 Mhz Athlon
Inno3D 64MB GeForce2 Ti
40GB Western Digital Hard Drive
10GB Western Digital Hard Drive
Sound Blaster Live! Value
HP CD-RW Drive
Generic DVD-ROM Drive

[plenderj]

What operating system ?

[Tygur]

Win2K

[plenderj]

Well as per this page ;
http://support.microsoft.com/default...mous%7c2025552

I would guess that Win2k can use up to 4GB of RAM.
So if you open lots of stuff at once, or have to use your paging file a lot, then yeah more ram would be worth it

[plenderj]

According to this page ;
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...s_gs_02003.htm

4GB is the maximum. So yeah, go hell for leather on the RAM

[chrisjk]

Originally posted by numtel
I'd say to upgrade the hard drive, 10MB and 40MB drives?

I'm sure he meant 40 and 10 GB since there is no way win2000 would fit on a 40Mb one.

[Bonker Gudd]

Originally posted by chrisjk
since there is no way win2000 would fit on a 40Mb one.

You're kidding!

*bangs head on wall*

[chrisjk]

alas I'm not But then if it did, well then there'd be no 120Gb HDDs around so maybe it's best.

My mate had a 40Mb'er, that was an 086. About 10 years old now

[Serge]

Absolutely, the more RAM the better. Just think about your swap file size when OS uses it when all RAM is in use. Everything will work faster.

I always go for more RAM then more CPU speed.
I'd rather get, for example, CPU: 1.5Ghz with 1GB RAM then CPU 2Ghz with 256MB RAM.......money wise they will be almost the same.

[Bonker Gudd]

Yeah, at home I have a 8MHz 386 with 4 terabytes of RAM. It beats this P3 with only 128MB.

[DerFarm]

Sheesh, and to think, I once wrote a statistics package in 4K.....


You guys are REALLY spoiled!

[nishantp]

Perhaps the OS can use lots of RAM, but can your apps? It depends what you're going to be doing. Am i right in saying that most of the programs you run/write have no need for that much RAM?

On the other hand, RAM is dirt cheap these days, so you might as well buy tons

[Serge]

Its not just a matter of your program using it. If you have many programs opened at the same time, you will benefit a lot by having extra RAM. Especially if you use memory independent programs like PhotoShop, where you can specify the amount of ram to use. By default it uses 50% of your entire memory.

[Tygur]

Originally posted by nishantp
Perhaps the OS can use lots of RAM, but can your apps? It depends what you're going to be doing. Am i right in saying that most of the programs you run/write have no need for that much RAM?

On the other hand, RAM is dirt cheap these days, so you might as well buy tons

Actually, RAM prices more than doubled recently. Otherwise, I would have already gotten the extra memory.


I'm glad you guys noticed the MB in there instead of GB. I just edited that post.


Typically, my memory usage hovers somewhere between 300 and 400 MB (according to the task manager). I do quite a bit on my computer.

[JungleMan]

Don't get anymore than what you have, you won't notice it. I only got 512MB because it was dirt cheap at the time.

[numtel]

when i upgraded to ddr ram, i only had enough money for one stick of 256 but now i'd like to upgrade to two sticks of pc2700 256mb. it's cool that my xp-333-r mobo can handle that

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by numtel
when i upgraded to ddr ram, i only had enough money for one stick of 256 but now i'd like to upgrade to two sticks of pc2700 256mb. it's cool that my xp-333-r mobo can handle that

XP333? That's nice...when it's working

ALi magik *pukes*

[numtel]

dont dis the ali magik, it works everytime, even on my crappy 250w psu, never had one problem

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by numtel
dont dis the ali magik, it works everytime, even on my crappy 250w psu, never had one problem

Hmm...but it's pretty ass slow when it's not overclocked.

[numtel]

that's why i've got a peltier, not oc'ed yet tho, gott aget better thermal compound

[JungleMan]

a peltier? you must have another PSU.

Is AS3 out yet?

[plenderj]

Originally posted by Bonker Gudd
Yeah, at home I have a 8MHz 386 with 4 terabytes of RAM. It beats this P3 with only 128MB.

A 386 can't access 4 terabytes of ram

[DWillems]

It can if you employ a hundred more pixies to haul the excess of ram around your motherboard.

It's about 10 € a pixie. They're cheap

Oh, what a terrible pun ...

[arsmakman]

Originally posted by Bonker Gudd
Yeah, at home I have a 8MHz 386 with 4 terabytes of RAM. It beats this P3 with only 128MB.

I have a -186 with 0,4Hz, 3 bytes and 8 quadrilliongigabytes of RAM.

[Tygur]

I decided to let everyone know what I ended up doing.

I had 256 MB of DDR memory that wasn't working, so I traded that in for a working one and replaced the 128. So now I have 512 MB of memory and I spent nothing adding the extra 128.

Then I used the money that was going to go into the memory and got a 1.4Ghz athlon and a new fan/heatsink.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think that was the way to go.

[plenderj]

Well ya know what you could have done, you could have gotten systems with similar specs, ie. one has x ram, but faster processor, or the other has more ram, and slower processor etc.

Then compar what runs faster etc.