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Any performance improvement if I upgrade my RAM - 2GB to 4GB?

E

endervalentine

Senior member
hey guys, sorry total noob here. my old home pc is beginning to really slow down ... I was planning on do a fresh install of win7 x64 and since I was doing that was wondering if I should throw some more RAM in there.

Attached are the specs of my setup ...
homepc_setup.jpg
 
If you do a lot of multitasking, you'll definitely notice its more snappy when you switch between apps.
 
if your RAM usage never exceeds 2 GB, then no

if your RAM usage exceeds 2 GB, then yes

I'd say it's best to upgrade to 4 GB, but you may not see a noticeable improvement.
 
Yeah windows 7 likes its ram. I went from 2GB to 4GB when i was back on vista and a lot of things went much faster.
 
Current memory is slooow (DDR2-4200 running at its rated 267MHz/533DDR). Not sure if Prescott benefits much from faster memory though (DDR2-6400 for 400MHz/800DDR).
 
There is only about one system in the whole household that currently have more than 2GB of RAM, so cannot really comment on improvement or not. However, I do know that if you want to run virtual machines, or use Windows 7's Virtual XP, then more RAM should help the performance, even if slightly. I was running a system with 2GB RAM, then pulled 1GB out for another system, the performance of virtual machine is quite slow and just above bearable. So like others said, depends on your usage.
 
Windows Vista and 7 use SuperFetch, a feature that uses free RAM as a cache. Since accessing RAM is usually faster than accessing the page file on your HDD, there is a slight performance boost when you throw in extra RAM.

If you decide to run with 4GB, you may also consider setting aside 256MB of RAM for a RAMDisk. Change your browser settings to store its cache on the RAMDisk. Voila, zippier browser. I use RAMDisk Plus by Superspeed because it maintains the RAMdisk data between reboots.
 
If you experince lot of harddrive activity when using your computer and you have to wait a lot then yes. Increasing amount of memory decreases the need to store data in pagefile stored on the harddrive.
 
if i were in your position i'd look into a cpu upgrade instead. if your motherboard can support any core 2-based cpu i'd jump on that. should be a good deal more noticeable than a ram upgrade. i have an athlon ii x3 435 and 2gb ddr2 667 and my system is very fast with windows 7 x64.
 
with your current setup then adding more ram probably wont matter much. with a single core P4 and x800 you are running a pc that is mainly only good for playing older games and surfing the web anyway. even a $350 pc from Best Buy and $75 video card will be like a supercomputer compared to what you have now.
 
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Generally, with modern operating systems like Vista and Win7-64, you'll want as much RAM as you can afford or as much as the existing system will support. Whether that money would be better spent on a new mobo/CPU/RAM is where the decision really is.

An inexpensive modern dual-core system with 4gb of RAM will be a much better investment than putting more RAM into your current system.
 
her209 said:
If you do a lot of multitasking, you'll definitely notice its more snappy when you switch between apps.
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Agreed.

Bring up task manager while you do your daily tasks and monitor your RAM usage. If you get close or exceed 2Gb, then an upgrade is warranted.
 
I think 4GB will be very useful. Doing nothing on the desktop, Windows 7 64-bit uses close to 1GB of memory. If you game, it'll easily reach 2GB and start to swap from hard drive.
 
IntelUser2000 said:
I think 4GB will be very useful. Doing nothing on the desktop, Windows 7 64-bit uses close to 1GB of memory. If you game, it'll easily reach 2GB and start to swap from hard drive.
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what games game will he be playing on a single core P4 and x800 that will push his system to 2gb? none would be the answer to that. 4gb isnt going to do much if anything at all for what his system is actually capable of.
 
Err, no. Have you not seen Vista benchmarks with various amounts of memory? Up to 4GB you gain performance. Granted, 7 is different, but its still the same core. Last time I checked, MSN Live Messenger with few windows open took over 100MB.

It'll still help going over 2GB. If you match your memory capacity to exactly how much you need, you'll be in trouble. Having extra allows it to cover for that coding inefficiencies it might have, and run extra background apps that weren't properly closed.
 
IntelUser2000 said:
Err, no. Have you not seen Vista benchmarks with various amounts of memory? Up to 4GB you gain performance. Granted, 7 is different, but its still the same core. Last time I checked, MSN Live Messenger with few windows open took over 100MB.

It'll still help going over 2GB. If you match your memory capacity to exactly how much you need, you'll be in trouble. Having extra allows it to cover for that coding inefficiencies it might have, and run extra background apps that weren't properly closed.
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I have a had two Vista comps with 2gb and you absolutely do not need more than 2gb for any type of normal use. the ONLY games I have played where having more than 2gb helped were STALKER Clear Sky and Warhead. task manager shows just over 2gb total system usage when playing those. other than that upgrading to more ram on that pc did absolutely nothing else for normal use. he doesnt have a gaming pc so he will never be able to use that much ram anyway.

sure if he was building a new pc then of course 4gb would make sense. on an old P4 machine then having more than 2gb is unnecessary. if he wants to buy more ram then great but he doesnt need to.
 
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Adding more ram will help whether you use more than 2GB or not. With Vista and Windows 7, the more ram you have, the faster your PC is. Both of these operating systems cache programs and files that you commonly use into spare ram so that when you go to access them they run as fast as they would if they were on a ram drive instead of having to load from the slow hard drive(Even solid state drives are terribly slow compared to ram). The more ram you have, the more room Windows has to cache more programs and files.
 
dguy6789 said:
Adding more ram will help whether you use more than 2GB or not. With Vista and Windows 7, the more ram you have, the faster your PC is. Both of these operating systems cache programs and files that you commonly use into spare ram so that when you go to access them they run as fast as they would if they were on a ram drive instead of having to load from the slow hard drive(Even solid state drives are terribly slow compared to ram). The more ram you have, the more room Windows has to cache more programs and files.
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help with what? he has a single core P4 so its not going to make daily tasks any better. I upgraded to more ram in my other pc and it made zero noticeable difference except in the 2 games I just mentioned. if that was my pc I would put it on craigslist and buy something more modern instead of wasting money on it.
 
Every program that he uses regularly will open much faster. It takes some time for Windows to learn what applications you use regularly so you don't get the benefit right away. It doesn't just load random data into ram, it loads data that it thinks you'll need.

Beyond that, it's not exactly hard to use 2GB of ram with some minor multitasking that even a Pentium 4 could handle today. Programs are much bigger now than they were a few years ago.
 
dguy6789 said:
Every program that he uses regularly will open much faster. It takes some time for Windows to learn what applications you use regularly so you don't get the benefit right away. It doesn't just load random data into ram, it loads data that it thinks you'll need.

Beyond that, it's not exactly hard to use 2GB of ram with some minor multitasking that even a Pentium 4 could handle today. Programs are much bigger now than they were a few years ago.
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and I am saying from a user standpoint adding more ram made zero noticeable improvement for daily usage. he would be better off to apply that money to a new pc because 2gb of ram is enough for a P4 machine doing everyday normal tasks.
 
Of course it would make a big difference. What OS are you using.

For XP , its a slight difference but for the newer OSes going from 2 to 4GB is big difference, depending on what your doing too. Also games will never hitch...

Also note your CPU and OS must be 64 bit in order to see all 4GB of ram. If not you will only see and use 3.2GB gl
 
tweakboy said:
Of course it would make a big difference. What OS are you using.

For XP , its a slight difference but for the newer OSes going from 2 to 4GB is big difference, depending on what your doing too. Also games will never hitch...

Also note your CPU and OS must be 64 bit in order to see all 4GB of ram. If not you will only see and use 3.2GB gl
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he will be using Win 7 64 bit and no it will not make a noticeable difference in normal everyday use. he has a p4 and x800 so he wont be running any games that would ever see the advantage anyway.
 
Adding another 2GB of RAM to the existing P4 system will likely not make a huge difference. Everything else then becomes the bottleneck, not the amount of RAM.
 
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