Add another 512Mb of RAM…?

[jj.]

Anyone advise me further. I’ve got a very happy 3200, 128Mb 9800 Pro, 1Gb machine – which runs very happily. Would I gain any further benefit by adding another 512Mb of RAM, taking the total to 1.5Gb.

I do the occasional CD/DVD burn – but these apps never seem to use more than a buffer of 128Mb, play the odd hour here or there of Doom 3 (which seems to run fine) and Tony Hawks, and like to play around with digital photos. I’ve never got more than 3/4 of them open at once in something like Paintshop Pro, etc.

I’ve not had any memory problems, it’s just there’s a spare slot on my board, and I’ve got some spare cash in the wallet. Would I notice any performance improvement by adding a further 512Mb, or is it really not worth it these days…?
jj

[plotloss]

You can never be too thin, too rich or have too much memory...

[pdV6]

You don't say what o/s you're using, which could be a factor.

However, for the kind of use you detail, I honestly don't think you'll notice any difference at all with another 0.5Gb RAM.

My heavily used development machine at work has "only" 0.75Gb RAM and the only time I notice any performance issues is when I have 3 or more VirtualPCs running on it simultaneously...

Having said all that, Matt's comment above is still true.



>> Edited by pdV6 on Thursday 9th September 10:34

[jj.]

OOppss.. Running XP.
jj

[NAPiston]

Depending upon a number of factors including what motherboard you have, how many memory modules you have installed and what their specs are, as well as the number and specs of what modules you would be adding, you could actually slow the system down. Some systems have optimal memory bank configurations that enable special high speed memory access and if you don't match those you can slow down the system access to all of the memory. I.e. a matched set of chips in banks 0 and 1 can be accessed via a 64 bit path but if you use a third bank then the system is forced to drop to a 32 bit path to access it all.

This would be a question better posed to a discussion forum dedicated to your motherboard.

[tubafun]

i tried fitting 512mb ram in to this pc(XP home). and the darn thing would reboot its self when i got to the desktop! Took it out, fine no probs. So at the mo i'm left with 128mb ddr and 256mb running on the grafics card(GF FX5200).