View Full Version : More RAM
Just a follow-up to my post of a few weeks ago. I finally bought a two pack of matched RAM from Cr*cial, whipped out the old single 1Gb module, and installed the twin modules for 2Gb the day before yesterday. Difference in XP speed is quite startling. Cr*cial will examine your PC first over the 'net and sell you what fits, so no worries there.
To anyone who is thinking of increasing the RAM in their PC, I can only say "go ahead". The performance gain (big) versus cost (small) is well justified.
OFSO
rgbrock1
8th Nov 2010, 15:30
Do keep in mind, however, that unless you are running a 64-bit version of Windows, it may not see more than 3-3.5GB RAM. Even if you were able to fill your system with 8GB.
Gertrude the Wombat
8th Nov 2010, 15:51
Plus, if you aren't actually short of RAM, because you aren't using all that you've got already, adding more will make no difference to speed and is a complete waste of money. So check that first.
M.Mouse
8th Nov 2010, 18:05
Plus, if you aren't actually short of RAM, because you aren't using all that you've got already, adding more will make no difference to speed and is a complete waste of money. So check that first.
How do you recommend doing that?
hellsbrink
8th Nov 2010, 19:34
Well, Gertrude, I disagree.
Adding more RAM is always a cheap way of speeding up your PC because, simply, more ram means that less virtual memory will be used and as chip memory is faster and has faster access times than a harddisk has the overall PC speed increases..
Therefore, more ram = noticible increase in speed, whether you use "all" your ram or not!
mustpost
8th Nov 2010, 19:56
Yup, agree HP, got a dual boot xp pro 32/64 bitty machine with 8 gb, obviously doesn't use all of that on 32 bit but the increase in performance when all 8 is used on 64 bit is noticeable..:ok:
Mad Monk
8th Nov 2010, 20:51
Gertrude,
In my experience it sort of depends upon what you are doing.
I do a lot of image processing, 2.5Ghz Quad core m/c was bought with 4, went to 8 and finally 16Gb of RAM; quantum leaps in terms of number chunking every time. I am aware of the requirement of scratch disk space; I run two 500Gb drives as a RAID 0 array for fast seek/write times; with a maximum of 200GB of data to give large scratch disk volumes.
MM.
Mike-Bracknell
8th Nov 2010, 21:06
Well, Gertrude, I disagree.
Adding more RAM is always a cheap way of speeding up your PC because, simply, more ram means that less virtual memory will be used and as chip memory is faster and has faster access times than a harddisk has the overall PC speed increases..
Therefore, more ram = noticible increase in speed, whether you use "all" your ram or not!
Not necessarily the case. When you run out of DIMM slots on the motherboard it's not exactly cheap to replace the motherboard or swap out the DIMM sizes for greater capacities.
Also, more RAM does NOT always mean that less virtual memory is used. A swapfile cannot easily be eradicated if you want to retain dump logs, and 32bit programs are limited themselves to a process size of 2Gb anyway.
32bit programs are limited themselves to a process size of 2Gb anyway.
Not sure about 32-bit Windows, but a 32-bit program can use up to 4GB of RAM in 64-bit Windows if you set the 4GB flag on the executable. Of course if the program is badly written then it will crash if you do set the flag.
Gertrude the Wombat
9th Nov 2010, 11:52
Adding more RAM is always a cheap way of speeding up your PC because, simply, more ram means that less virtual memory will be used and as chip memory is faster and has faster access times than a harddisk has the overall PC speed increases.
Nonsense.
If you have 2Gb physical RAM and you are using 1Gb total memory then buy more RAM won't make it go any faster, because you are already never using the disk for swapping.
Mad Monk
9th Nov 2010, 18:54
I have to agree with Gertrude upon this latter point.
Often the bottleneck is the Bus speed/capability. Two parts of the m/c may crunch data at relatively high speeds but the 'motorway' that connects them will be the bottleneck, the Bus, L1 and L2 caches on lower grade m/cs may well be the limiting factors; thus read/write times and RAM level become irrelevant.
Jimmy Macintosh
9th Nov 2010, 19:19
Just to mildly hi-jack the thread...
I have 4Gb of RAM installed (motherboard max is 4Gb). Is it worth installing a 64 bit operating system rather than just upgrading my 32 bit system, knowing that I can't install any more RAM?
Mike-Bracknell
9th Nov 2010, 19:20
Not sure about 32-bit Windows, but a 32-bit program can use up to 4GB of RAM in 64-bit Windows if you set the 4GB flag on the executable. Of course if the program is badly written then it will crash if you do set the flag.
Comparison of 32-bit and 64-bit memory architecture for 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294418)
Check the section "System PTEs". It's 4Gb made up of 2Gb User and 2Gb Kernel.
Comparison of 32-bit and 64-bit memory architecture for 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294418)
Check the section "System PTEs". It's 4Gb made up of 2Gb User and 2Gb Kernel.
Yeah, but it also says: "Applications that are compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE option, as would be required to take advantage of the /3GB switch in 32-bit Windows, will automatically be able to address 4 GB of virtual memory without any boot time switches or changes to x64 Windows. Plus, of course, the operating system does not have to share that 4 GB of space. Therefore, it is not constrained at all" So it's pretty inconsistent.
Everything else I've read about the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag says the same, that it allows you to use up to 4GB of RAM without the OS taking any of it... and the fact that some games crash when it's set tends to imply that's the real behaviour too :).
Chuchinchow
11th Nov 2010, 14:27
A question for the resident experts, please:
I have a Sony VGN-AR41M laptop. Is there any way I can increase its RAM capacity, please?
green granite
11th Nov 2010, 14:43
If you have 2gigs at the moment the answer appears to be no.
Computer memory upgrades for Sony VAIO VGN-AR41M Laptop/Notebook from Crucial.com (http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.aspx?model=VAIO%20VGN-AR41M)
Pontius Navigator
11th Nov 2010, 16:55
Every computer that I have had has had a memory upgrade which has immediately boosted its performance.
Yes, you can probably manage your system so that it is not using the HDD for swap files but you will spend more time opening and closing applications. There are lots of programs that run services in the background and more RAM can only help.
I have a netbook that came with 1Gb on non-upgradeable RAM. I upgraded with a further 1Gb and it ran far sweeter. It seems the original RAM is not in a user accessible DIMM slot but the second slot was the same as on the laptop.
Gertrude the Wombat
11th Nov 2010, 19:49
Yes, you can probably manage your system so that it is not using the HDD for swap files but you will spend more time opening and closing applications.
Depends what you're doing. Mostly I'm running some combination of email client, accounts package, Office applications, web browsers, and C++ IDEs and applications, and that lot rarely comes to as much as 2G.
On the other hand if you're in the habit of for example running Java applications, particularly if they use Swing, or doing video editing, then you're likely to benefit from all the memory you can add. (Or getting the Java stuff rewritten in a proper language, but that's a different argument.)