To add more RAM or not? That is the question...

[Lemon law]

In my minuscule mind, the question of ram always boils down to where is the point of diminishing returns? And for most users of win XP or Vista, that point can be wildly variable depending on the number and types of applications a user runs.

But given the fact that most modern computers will support at least 2 GB of ram or more, the trade off becomes the dollar cost of ram vs. lesser system performance. With a side
question of how immature the given user is---are they so immature that they must keep up with Jones---or do they make the choice rationally?

But when push comes to shove, there are two basic taxes the ram deficient pay. (1) Longer boot times---which is dead time---very important and it does add up when you boot your computer one or more times everyday. But reduces to almost zero when you leave the computer on all the time. (2) Reduced system performance, especially when one runs either ram intensive applications or tries to keep many programs open at once.

In the case of my wife who had minimal ram needs application wise, I was in the 256 MB is enough to run win XP home camp. But I finally did pony up the $35.00 it took to double the
ram to 512 MB and found a dramatic reduction in boot time. I was not scientific enough to run the various benchmark applications that could have answered how much low end applications gained in a speed boost, but now am firmly in the 512MB is minimum for win XP camp. Nor does it seem, feel wise, that her apps run faster. Likewise, if I had infinite ram choices and the benchmarking programs, I could chart application speed and boot time for all ram configurations from 64MB to 2 GB while holding system configuration a constant.

As it is, I just hope I hit the sweet spot---and recognize users with more ram needs may well need far more. Especially gamers and those using high end video editing.

But for low end users of XP and vista with no special applications running, I would have to guess the minimum point of diminishing return is 512MB for XP and a 1GB for vista.

 

[Zebo]

I think you're right Lemon, as long as you don't include gaming or photo pros. Each of these apps can hit 700MB alone. I fall more into the 1GB for XP and 2 for Vista opinion but only for those who use those hogging tasks. My wife still uses 512 and I think never uses half of it just checking email, web broseing and paying bills.... it really comes down to what you do and how tight and clean you keep your computer. But 256 is min for 2k/XP.

I had a friend like the OP. He only had 512MB of Physical memory on a pretty powerful box... 3ghz northwood.. He was using massive ram on boot like 556MB or something after launching MSN/AOL or whatrver he used ram use rose to about 750MB with about 60 icons in the system trey. Totally ridiculous. Always whining to me about his "slow" computer knowing I know a little about PC's. I mean his comp was a wasteland of spyware, malware and uneeded programs - naturally it's slow as it's hashing to VM/disk non-stop. I refused to even entertain fixing this morass of irresponsibility so I simply suggested he get another full gig of mem and he was a happy camper from then on....in his case he definity realized a return.. I would have charged him $1000 to fix it and he would have just screwed it up a couple months later.