Question Do I need to upgrade Ram or CPU? (see screenshot)

JeffreyLebowski1990

Junior Member
Mar 2, 2019
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slhdg9.jpg

I've monitored CPU and Ram usage for some minutes while intensively using my old Asus K52f. As you can see from the picture, RAM is always full and CPU has lots of spikes reaching 100%. Do you think upgrading RAM from 4GB to 8GB would produce any noticeable improvement, considering CPU is intensively used as well?
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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What was your system doing during the observed period? What OS are you using?
 

JeffreyLebowski1990

Junior Member
Mar 2, 2019
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My OS is Windows 7. During the observed period I was using Eclipse IDE while playing a YouTube video full-screen on Chrome, having Tomcat server and MySQL database running.
 

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
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Are you having performance problems? No point worrying about a graph if your applications meet your performance neeeds.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Is your Win 7 32 or 64 bit? What make and model laptop?
 

Ajay

Lifer
Jan 8, 2001
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Well, you can try and figure out which process is pegging your cpu to 100% and if there is anything you can do about it.
 

daveybrat

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jan 31, 2000
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There were many different configurations of the Asus K52F. Can you tell us what the processor is?
 

JeffreyLebowski1990

Junior Member
Mar 2, 2019
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Thank you.
The processor is Intel Pentium CPU P6100 @ 2.00GHz. Video card is Intel HD Graphics. I've already upgraded HDD to SSD and noticed quite an improvement in performance.
 

Dasa2

Senior member
Nov 22, 2014
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What browser are you using? the difference in CPU\GPU usage when playing back a 8k video on my system can be huge between Edge, Firefox and Chrome.
With a low res monitor there isn't much point running video over 720p on your laptop so keeping it low will improve performance.

You can reduce RAM usage by tweaking windows to reduce the background processes but the more tabs you have open at once the more RAM you need and once you run out your SSD usage will go up and this is when performance will drop.

I think you are at the edge of your CPU and RAM so it may not be worth spending more cash on the current system to get extra RAM.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Changing CPU in a laptop is not easy, or always doable. Going from 4 to 8 in RAM is easy for a 64 bit OS.
 

IntelUser2000

Elite Member
Oct 14, 2003
8,686
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Whatever you are doing is pegging both. Youtube is not GPU accelerated with older Intel graphics so it'll take a bit of CPU too.

Seems worth it to get a new device if you are using your computer for development purposes. Actually, a desktop would be better because then you can spend much less money upgrading but maybe you want it to be portable.
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,338
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I'd double the RAM and upgrade to SSD. Also check for BIOS update. Made a big difference in my sister's similar-era laptop. Upgrading processors on many laptops can be far more PITA or iffy proposition.
 

Drassx

Member
Dec 5, 2018
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That's a tough one, although the extra RAM will likely provide some improved performance it likely will only like useful during certain tasks or if you are a heavy(or heavier than average win 7) user, at the point you are at just take the money and invest in a new laptop(unless you are determined to hold onto win7; let it go man, its gonna be okay) . you can even find something in the $300-400 usd range that you can toss your ssd in and be in great shape.
 

hojnikb

Senior member
Sep 18, 2014
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Use H264ify addon for your browser, so videos get accelerated via the gpu.
Also, you might consider upgrading to Win10. It seem to manage ram better and has memory compressions for situations, where physical ram is lacking.

Next step is to upgrade the ram obviously. If that doesn't solve your issue, upgrade to a faster i3 or i5 is also possible. This laptop should have socket G1. Obviously check before you're buying.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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Use H264ify addon for your browser, so videos get accelerated via the gpu.
How does that work? Downgrade the advertised video-playing codec support, so VP9 and H.265/HEVC aren't suggested, so it downgrades to H.264?