Thanks to all for the replies.
Yes, at one time 128kB was a lot. I started programming on a Commodore 64,
and people said, "What will you do with all that memory? And it has color
too!"
This is not a development machine, but it will be used for small to moderate
sized desktop publishing tasks, plus other desktop apps, while also acting
as a low-moderate volume file server to three or four other machines. So
performance is a concern.
I won't be able to change the motherboard or processor, and overclocking is
not really something I want to risk on a business computer.
How much improvement can I expect to see by just increasing the amount of
RAM?
Thanks.
"Andrew McLaren" <andrew@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:72F7356B-0B03-4F89-B0D9-21518C88C257@microsoft.com...
> Hi Paul,
>
> Yes, incredible as it may seem (especially to those of us who remember
> multi-user systems running on 128k of memory), 512MB is pretty much the
> lower edge of acceptable, for Vista. Web browsing, email and office apps
> will all run fine in 512MB but you won't see blazing performance. A score
> of 2.0 sounds about right to me.
>
> It can also be affected by the speed of your memory - faster memeory will
> get a higher score. 512MB of PC5300 memory will get a higher score than if
> you had 512MB of PC2100 memory. Also the speed of the memory bus (ie,
> Front-side Buss or FSB) - a machine with a 1066MHz FSB will get a higher
> memory score than a machine with a 533MHz FSB, becuse the performance test
> can perform more read-and-write memory operations per second.
>
> The Sempron is a "budget" processor, so is usually found in machines that
> are assembled with a goal of economy rather thanr blazing performance. For
> the common uses I mentioned, I suspect your machine will run just fine,
> you won't be frustrated by it. But it won't be a speed-demon.
>
> Just for comparison, my deskktop box has 3GB of PC4200 RAM, and gets a
> memory score of 5.4 (and overall score 5.2). I'm usually running a couple
> of Virtual PCs, and compiling in Visual Studio - both memory-intensive
> activities, so the extra memory performance helps. It's wild overkill, for
> email and using Word :-) When I first installed Vista I had an overall
> score of 2.4 - I had a pretty basic video card which was anomolously
> low-scoring. I replaced the video card with a (still pretty moddest)
> 7900GS video card and the score leapt to 5.9!
>
> Hope this helps,
> Andrew