RAM - 2gb vs 4gb for very light usage

[DarkRogue]

Hello,

The main "office PC" at work isn't used for anything major. It's a Dell, but it's extremely slow because it has only 128MB (!!) of RAM in it. I suggested to my employer that he should at least upgrade the RAM so starting up and shutting down Windows XP isn't such a pain. He doesn't know too much about this stuff so he left it to me.

As I said, this isn't very heavily used. It's used for browsing the web and Microsoft Office.
2GB of DDR2 runs $20, which is absolutely affordable and will be a definite upgrade over 128MB. But for such a light task, is it even worth it to consider 4GB for the extra ~$20?

 

[VirtualLarry]

If it only has 128MB, I would seriously question whether it used DDR2. Possibly, it uses 168-pin SDRAM, otherwise known as PC100 or PC133.
check out starmicro for a source of fairly cheap PC100/133. You can get up to 512MB sticks, just make certain that your system chipset supports it. Also might have issues with "low-density" versus "high-density".

 

[DarkRogue]

Yeah that is one thing I forgot to check, which is the type of RAM it uses.
I'll check on it next time I have a chance, but either way, 128MB is excruciatingly slow. IIRC XP recommends 256MB or so, so even at bootup it's already swapping to HD lol.

I don't think it's that old though. At worst I think it uses DDR1 RAM, which sucks because DDR1 prices are kind of high now, compared to DDR2. Newegg only seems to stock up to 2GB of DDR1, and even then it's pricey at $70, with 1GB modules running $35ish. Though, I may be able to buy some old DDR1 off the FS forums if this is the case. Either way, Anything above 128MB is a step up, but at what point should I not bother putting more past it? My old PC ran with 1GB of DDR1, so I'd say even 1GB should be good enough for such a lightly used PC, but I'm not sure how huge or small the gains are with 2GB or 4GB.

 

[lxskllr]

If it's DDR1 I'd go 1gb max. If it's DDR2 go with 2gb max.

 

[Denithor]

XP runs comfortably with 512MB for most general use apps.

Best option would be just find a cheap 512MB stick and throw it in there beside the 128MB stick.

 

[imported_wired247]

i'll put it this way... at work I have a pentium 4 3.0GHz, it came with 1GB of DDR2-667 and a craptastic 5400rpm SATA drive that was slow as balls.

I upgraded the RAM to 2GB of DDR2-667, a nice 250gb 7200RPM SATA drive, and now there is enough RAM for everything, and things load so much quicker due to that faster hard drive.

Currently running windows 7 beta on that machine, it's very snappy now. Definitely consider upgrading the HDD which will help load times significantly.


Ultimately, at the point where my "work computer" is worth less than $100 I would not mind paying out of pocket a couple hundred $$ myself to replace it with something a bit more modern.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

Originally posted by: Denithor
XP runs comfortably with 512MB for most general use apps.

Best option would be just find a cheap 512MB stick and throw it in there beside the 128MB stick.

what he said ^^

I run XP on a P3 with 640 megs. runs office pro 2007 and web duty stuff fine.

 

[DarkRogue]

Hmm, okay.

I guess everyone's saying roughly 1GB or so should be enough for XP running basic tasks, so I'll shoot for 1-2GB or so. If nothing else, I may have an old 512MB stick of DDR lying around somewhere. Still kind of wondering if there would be much of any gains going larger than 1-2GB for such a PC, but if everyone's happy running such a system with 1GB, I'll assume the gains aren't really worth it.

 

[lxskllr]

Open Task Manager and look at your peak usage. If that number's less than your physical ram, you won't gain anything by adding more.