Upgrading RAM

[stu2906]

I have been looking around and all the latest computers seem to have 1Gb of RAM. I have 512MB DDR-SDRAM 400Mhz.

What difference would i notice if i upgraded to 1Gb? Does the Hz matter if i upgrade?

I believe i have to stick with the format but after that i get a bit confused...

Stu

 

[Preferred User]

Stu,

I upgrade memory a lot, and I doubt you'll see much difference if you're just browsing the net, emailing, etc. You will see a difference if you use applications that need a lot of resources and have a lot of them open at once. Here's a good rule of thumb. Hold down Ctrl and Shift while you hit Esc. You'll see task manager. At the bottom it will tell you the "Commit Charge". If it's at or near the size of your actualy memory (512 in your case) you could use some more memory.

I believe you're seeing 1 Gig out there a lot these days because memory has become so cheap. I'm on a lot of machines every day and am not convinced the average user needs a gig.

Does the Hz matter if you upgrade? I'm not exactly sure what you mean except that if you have PC2700 Memory, you need to add PC2700. It does need to be compaitible that way and that measure does involve the speed in MHz.

 

[snowcow]

I upgraded from 512 (ddr400) to 1.5gb a while abck and to me it made a pretty huge difference. My computer just seemed to be able to handle a load a lot better as it wasn't running out of resources. Running multiple applications was also a lot easier.

 

[mindido]

stu,

Theres an old saying in the computer biz which says that you can never have enough RAM. But, it does depend on what your doing with the machine. If your using Photoshop or some of the other high end graphics apps, then you should max out your RAM for your mobo. But if your just surfing, doing some word processing and email, 512 MB should be just fine. But if you have a bit of money burning in your pocket, adding another 1/2 Gig won't hurt. You should notice a speed difference. Just stick with the same DDR 400.

 

[MysterioX]

Just to let you know windows xp on its own takes up 256mb ram.
I wouldnt recommend anything under 1gb now.

 

[Preferred User]

Just to let you know windows xp on its own takes up 256mb ram.

Depends on how much RAM you have. I have 512 of physical RAM. At idle, Windows XP Pro + anti-virus + Zone Alarm = 207 MB of memory load. I've been on XP machines with 256 RAM that committ less than 200 Megs at idle.

 

[Cman]

surprisingly windows xp's reccomended minimum is 128MB ram. the minimum supported is 64MB ram.
with as small as a 300 mhz cpu... doesnt seem very scientific...

it was released in 2001. not everyone had a gig of RAM back then.

 

[stu2906]

OK i guess i probably didn't need the extra RAM but as Minidido said if you have that burning feeling in your pocket....

....you may as well make a good ebay purchase and get another stick of stuff.

I now have a full gig of dingdongs....RAM i mean. I have noticed my HD runs a bit quieter (although i also had a good old spring clean inside the magic box at the same time) and some programmes are quicker than before when i open them and click on stuff. Generaly i am pleased with the change and was very happy at how easy the installation was.

Cheers for the feedback chaps, it seems i ask you guys a fair few questions these days. That should be me happy until i decide to buy a new computer now though.

Stu

P.S. Reps to you all (even Cman)

 

[Cman]

OK i guess i probably didn't need the extra RAM but as Minidido said if you have that burning feeling in your pocket....

....you may as well make a good ebay purchase and get another stick of stuff.

I now have a full gig of dingdongs....RAM i mean. I have noticed my HD runs a bit quieter (although i also had a good old spring clean inside the magic box at the same time) and some programmes are quicker than before when i open them and click on stuff. Generaly i am pleased with the change and was very happy at how easy the installation was.

its always good to have a gig. i have a gig in mine.

the reason why the HD would be quicker is because it has to do less swapping. there is more room in the RAM so it needs less virtual memory space on the HD. similar case with your programs. it can store more programs in RAM itself instead of getting it off the HD.

 

[mindido]

CMan,

Jeez, do we want to get into a discussion of partitioning a HD to make room for a swap file on its own drive? That will speed things up even more.

 

[Cman]

partitions wouldn't really matter because the HD would still be considerably slower than RAM. so its all about the RAM. ideally you want to have as little swapping going on as possible, regardless of what partition its on.

 

[mindido]

CMan and one,

Yeah, I agree. But if your a Photoshop person the swap file is still a necessity (at least according to the PS manuals I've read). If I remember correctly, my roommates PS was nagging her about the swap file being on a separate drive and didn't relent until I partitioned her second drive and put the swap file in one of the partitions.

She did notice a speed increase after that so I went and did the same on my machine and it did seem to make a difference. A bit of a hassle but, at least for me, worth the while.

 

[Cman]

Theoretically though, if you had enough RAM, for the sake of argument say 3 or 4 gigs, then PS wouldn't have to swap at all, it could hold its entire cache in RAM. So that was my point, RAM will always be faster and always preferably, if possible.

Photoshop always says that when you install it. I ignored it cause I was too lazy to worry about it. If you're just doing small stuff it doesn't really matter. The only time it would matter is if you're a "professional" and you use it as your job or something. You would have to be working on a HUGE project or many at a time, for it to really matter than much.

Think about it logically, even big files are never usually above 10 or so MB, unless you're making a street sign or something ridiculously big like that. Then you have the program files on top of that, but I still don't see it being a huge hog until average circumstances.

Probably the biggest hog that I notice on my computer is streaming video on the internet. Especially if its java. Live video for example, where there is no set file size and it just keeps going and it keeps piling up in memory.

 

[mindido]

CMan,

My roommate has 3 Gigs in her machine (which you would think would be enough) but PS was still nagging her about moving the swap file off C:\. After a bit of research, I found that PS is pretty anal about the swap file being on a separate drive (not a separate partition). So I wound up creating a small (10 GB) partition on her second drive, moving the swap file to it, and it hasn't chirped since. PS (and some of her other graphics apps) also seems to work a bit better since then. One of them that does something with video rendering (I don't remember what its called) really seemed to take advantage ot the move. It would barely render with the swap file on C:\.

I don't use those high end graphics apps on my own machine but moving the swap file to the second drive did make a difference. Slight, but detectable.

 

[Cman]

Well if they are doing video rendering, then yes, I can see the purpose of it.

I have been using PS for years and just have it on the same drive as my OS. I mostly only due small things though, like web graphics.

 

[mindido]

CMan,

I'm definitely not a PS person (I have a scaled down version called PS Elements that I only rarely use) but my roommate uses the full blown version of PS almost daily and creates some really huge files. For her, and other people in her situation, its probably a necessity.

And if you haven't tried that little trick, give it a shot. You may be surprised with the results. It's really pretty simple to do if you have a second HD. Come to think of it, you may be able to just put the swap file on the second drive without a separate partition. I'm not sure how well it would work on a separate partition on the same HD.

 

[Cman]

The reason they would want you to put it on a separate HD is probably so that both drives can read and write at the same time. Its like the expression "two heads are better than one". (no pun intended lol)

If you had it on a separate partition on the same drive, you probably wouldn't notice much of a different. The only thing that would help is the fragmentation.

 

[mindido]

If you had it on a separate partition on the same drive, you probably wouldn't notice much of a different. The only thing that would help is the fragmentation.

CMan,

Yup, thats pretty much what I was thinking. It probably wouldn't do much for the read and write seek times. May even be a liability on the same drive.

 

[Cman]

i never get the message. i got it when it was first installed, but since then, i was able to shut it up somehow.

 

[mindido]

Cman and one,

Well, I don't know. I do know that it finally disappeared once I put the swap on her E:\ (a second drive). One, do you have one drive or two?