512MB of DDR to 768MB DDR...worth it?

[dmw16]

256MB of Crucial DDR is on sale at best buy today for $37 so I was wondering if the performance gain is worth the cost? I have 512 right now and i was just thinking about getting more.
thanks,
-doug

 

[MisterMe]

The performance gain isn't going to knock your sock off. So as long as you don't expect any night and day differences, maybe it falls under the category of "why not"...frankly the 512 you have is probably plenty. Maybe use the new stuff in a second system...

 

[LarryJoe]

Not worth it no matter if it is $37 or not. Go out for some dinner and drinks with the dough. You will not notice one bit of difference.

 

[madthumbs]

I notice a difference, and it's worth it for me.

 

[bjc112]

i Say grab it, use it... and if you ever need ram for a second system, just pop out that 256mb... and throw it in😛

 

[murphy55d]

I would stock up on that 37 dollar ram in case prices go up again.

 

[bigshooter]

Save your money. You probably will need faster than pc2100 for your next system anyways. People should have asked you what you do with your computer before saying you would or wouldn't notice it, but since you failed to say I use photoshop/autocad/3dmodeling/encoding, anythign that takes a lot of memory I'm assuming you just use normal stuff. If you do not have any memory hungry applications you will probably not notice the difference. You might be able to turn off your swap file, don't know, I had a gig of ram when i did, and things seemed faster.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

sometimes i wonder if people even realize what ram is for and how its used...

if you use more than 512MB regularly, then you will notice a difference by having more.

if you don't use more than 512MB regularly, then you will notice absolutely NO difference.

 

[Ionizer86]

For the normal user, there's probably no point. I picked up some PC2100 DDR from Crucial (which came out $39.59, which is actually cheaper than the $37 since tax was included), and the jump from 256mb to 512mb didn't really make much difference for me, but then again, I haven't ran photoshop since then either. I have, however, turned my swap off. Boot time seems to be a tad shorter, but that's it.

Edit: To get this price, check the hot deals area for a 15% off link, then in conjunction with the $10 off coupon, it'll come out to be around $36 or so. And then tax in San Diego was 7.75%, which brought it to $39.59 for me. The shipping was fast too! I ordered monday evening, and the ram arrived wednesday afternoon.

 

[nortexoid]

depends - if u're an average user (i.e. not a power (as opposed to the average) photoshop user), you won't notice a difference at all. i went from 384 to 512 and didn't notice a difference

yeah it's cheap, but if you like throwing away money on computer useles computer components, then go ahead...if you have a life u mgiht consider investing in something else - like drugs.

(joking).

but seriously, save it or buy somethign worthwhile.

 

[HGC]

The last time it was cheap I put 1 gig in my system. I enjoyed the feeling of being a genius when prices ran up, then eventually put half in another box. IMO go for it.

 

[Siddhartha]

Go for it. If RAM is that cheap I will get more for my system

Note: To use more than 512 meg with Windows 98 and WinMe you need to edit a system file. I forget which one but you can do a search on the MS website for the information. I have read that Win XP and Win 2000 can use more than 512 meg without any issues.

 

[madthumbs]

You don't really have to be a power user to use that much ram. The less tweaked your system is, the more the ram comes in handy as well. My computer happens to have a lot of hardware (3 HD's w/ 4 partitions, 2+ optical drives, 11 USB ports, almost all the PCI slots full. Anyway using simple program I noticed the benefit of more ram.