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256 --> 384MB RAM overkill?!

C

cool

Senior member
I have right now 2x128MB Noname RAM in my BX-mobo. It's working perfectly although both sticks are from different noname-manufacturers. Would another stick make any problems stability-wise? And/Or is 384MB RAM total overkill? I'm running right now Win2K and am working mainly with NetBeans (Java IDE, eats up 80MB-RAM at startup!) and sometimes I play UT. When I upgraded a few weeks ago from 160MB to 256MB-RAM, I noticed a big improvement. Would another 128MB-RAM help or is it just waste of money?


Thanks for help!


PS: I hope this is the right forum for this question... 😉
 
Ram's VERY cheap right now, so to many with the extra ~$60 to spend, it's worth it. If money's tight however, the performance increases won't be justified. If you have a slower processor, you would do better spending money upgrading that instead of more memory. You're instincts of this not being a no-brainer are correct, and for many, money saved in this circumstance is money that can go towards a better upgrade down the road. Keep in mind that DDR boards are showing up, and you will want entirely difference memory soon. I just upgraded from 128 to 256 and I notice a difference while doing large tasks, but for my limited needs, I certainly wouldn't upgrade further. I chose to get a second 45 gig HD. WISE decision. I lost my other one last weekend. 15 gigs worth of data was saved!!! 😀 I say this only to suggest that more memory may not be the most valuable upgrade you could make to your system.
 
Run the Win2K Task Manager Performance monitor in the background. If you approach the full usage of the installed memory, then it might make sense to add RAM. If you are not experiencing paging or swapping to the hard drive, I would not spend the money on more RAM.
 
Thanks a lot for your suggestions! I'll save the money for other stuff. Right now I'm really happy with my system (no real swapping at all) and I'm going to stick with it for 1-2 years. I thought about a RAM upgrade because of the low prices and the saying "the more memory the better it is". Yes it's true but there's a limit...

Here're my system specs:
PIII 650E
256MB RAM
EPoX EP-BX3 (stable, installed Win2K 2 months ago and had 'til now no crash or BSOD!)
Creative GeForce2MX
SB Live! Value
Quantum Fireball 6.4GB (don't need more, for now...)
Pioneer DVD-114
Peacock Entrada 19"
 
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