Memory - How Much of a Boost?

[Sammy5000]

Hey All...

I am currently running WinXP Home with the following system:

P4 2.4 Ghz (533 FSB)
Giga-Byte GA-8SQ800 Mobo
512MB PC2700 Crucial (2 sticks of 256MB)
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (AGP 8x) 128MB
Onboard Sound
Maxtor 80GB HDD (UDMA)
Maxtor 20GB HDD (UDMA)
Philips CD-RW
Antex 400W PSU

The question - would bumping up my memory to 1 GB be worth it, performance wise?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Markfw]

If you are doing certain things, yes, otherwise no. Things I know of that need all the memory you give them:

1) Sim's games
2) Windows movie maker
3) Adobe photoshop (I think, not sure on this one)

Most CAD programs and highly graphics intensive tasks.

For anything else, 512 is plenty.

 

[Lonyo]

256 -> 512MB is quite a big boost, but 512+ is excessive for most users, as they don't really need that much, unless they run memory intensive tasks.
Games like Unreal 2, UT2k3, BF1942 etc, run better with 512MB than 256MB, but the boost with 1gb is pretty much not noticed.

I had 256MB running tight timings and higher FSB, moved to 512MB, much better, less choppy due to lower caching to HDD, added 512MB more (for 1GB), no real difference.

 

[LegionX]

i went from 512 to 1 gig and i notice a tad bit of performance and less hard drive activity but not signicantly over all. i did notice a big difference though when playing BF1942. at the price of ram today i dont see any real cons to upgrading it unless you are broke like i am half the time

 

[Sunner]

IMO this is a bit like asking about SMP.

If you have to ask, it's not worth it.

Of course I guess if you're a big Sim City 4 fan, by all means, otherwise, no.