Laptop DDR2 800 SO-DIMM-Why so expensive? Does anyone have it cheap?

[Artista]

I just picked up a used Dell Precision M4400 for a great great price. Comes with 4Gb memory, thinking about upgrading to 8Gb.

OS is Windows Vista Business. I have Windows 7 Home Premium sitting around I can install. (Perhaps on new ssd drive)

Looked at the memory (8Gb) and it cost more than the laptop. Will 4Gb more of memory make any big difference or should I buy a SSD drive instead?

Why so high now days?

Anywhere I can get it cheap?

Thank you

 

[bbhaag]

I've noticed the same thing to. I have an older Turionx2 64 laptop running 3gb and upgrading to 4 is just not a good financial move. Even the used market seems a little to spendy.

Personally I would go with an SSD but it really depends on what you plan to use this machine for. I think you will see a bigger bang per buck performance dropping in an SSD vs. going from 4gig to 8.

 

[OlafSicky]

Most old laptops don't take 8 gigs. Just get a nice SSD if you have sata ii in that thing.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I doubt you would see much of a difference in most tasks an old laptop is capable of running. I'm saying not worth it.

SSD all the way!

 

[Artista]

Thank you.

Yeah that is kind of what I thought. Will go the direction of the ssd unless a good Samaritan here wants to donate memory or sell it at a low price.

The core duo (T9900) is 3.06 Ghz CPU. Great speed. Plus this machine has its own dedicated video card with 512 MB memory on board.

A really fast and usable older machine.

 

[Gillbot]

4gb DDR2 sticks are rare, so supply and demand dictates that everyone who wants to "top out" their system on memory is trying to buy thus creating high demand.

 

[Artista]

4gb DDR2 sticks are rare, so supply and demand dictates that everyone who wants to "top out" their system on memory is trying to buy thus creating high demand.

That makes sense.

 

[Eug]

For those DDR2 laptops, yeah, it usually only makes sense to top out at 4 GB.

And yeah, you'll get much more bang for your buck by installing an SSD.

 

[greenhawk]

DDR2 is just old now. It was being phased out a while back and has only gone up in price since.

As to the laptop, it might help, but a SSD would more. Besides, unless those OS's you are looking at using are 64bit, it is a waste of time even thinking about 8GB in it.

 

[jjsbasmt]

SSD all the way, and you will be able to migrate the drive to another system if the need ever arises whereas the RAM upgrade may not be usable to you in the future should something happen to the laptop. Also, in the interim, before you install Win 7, you could download and install the Win 8.1 Enterprise preview and see how well that runs on the system. I'm running that (x64) on a 4 yr old C2D Compaq notebook with 2 GB or RAM, and it performs rather well. Just for GeeWow.