Solved Memory RAM upgrade

[pappi]

Although I do not see any significant change in my PC usage in the near future, I am now seriously considering maximizing from 4 to 8 GB which will cost me $150.00. (It's probable that I am doing this just because I can)

What do I expect from this? In other words, what difference does it make? Very specifically, will an extra 4 GB of RAM make any impact on high speed games?

Any downside?

 

[Patonb]

Really you will see no change. 4Gigs is more than enough and the money would be better spent on other things.

If you want better performance, buy an SSD (Solid State Drive), you will see a huge increase in performance compared to adding memory.
Corsair Neutron Series GTX CSSD-N240GBGTXB-BK Solid State Drive - Newegg.com
Something like that and your old drive as a file storage drive will make your computer like new.

 

[pappi]

Hmmm...thanks Pat, I kinda need to hear exactly that. Actually this notebook is performing no differently from when it was fresh new 5 yrs ago. As it is, it has much more than what it needs to serve my computing purpose.

If for whatever reason I decided, down the line, to upgrade to W7, would I be better maxed to 8GB?

 

[townsbg]

Hmmm...thanks Pat, I kinda need to hear exactly that. Actually this notebook is performing no differently from when it was fresh new 5 yrs ago. As it is, it has much more than what it needs to serve my computing purpose. If for whatever reason I decided, down the line, to upgrade to W7, would I be better maxed to 8GB?

Plain and simple no unless you regularly use more than 4 gb of ram. Lets say that your system normally uses 1-2 gb. After an upgrade it will still be using 1-2 gb so as you can see the extra ram is sitting unused and therefore wasted. Now it would be a different story if you regularly use more than 4 gb because when you run out of memory the OS is forced to pretend that the hard drive is memory (called virtual memory) and that is slower than real ram even if you are using a solid state drive. In that situation you would eliminating such use of your hard drive which would result in improved performance however like patomb stated 4 gb is usually more than enough for most people.

There is the possibility of getting faster ram which might provide a slight performance increase however unless your system is relying on virtual memory 8 gb of faster ram will provide no more of a performance increase than 4 gb of the same ram. IMO having that much ram on windows is a waste so keep your money in your wallet.

 

[Patonb]

Well Towns sorta right. Wibndows will use about 50% of avaliable memory... Doesn't mean it needs to, but just incase you use that program from 3 weeks ago that it didn't put away.

My i7 950 (1366 socket is triple channel ram. Means I need 3 sticks to run properly, so I have 6 gigs of which I a using ~3 gigs doing nothing.

If you are heavy on the programs or you don't shut down a lot, which is not you, more ram helps...

I'd definately only upgrade the hard drive to an ssd and that's it. I did it to my Acer 8930g and the boot up is under 30secs and programs snap open.

 

[pappi]

System Information says my HD is Standard Disk Drives with 512 Bytes/sector, one partition, and is media typed Fixed hard disk, sized 298.09 Gigs.

Like say, an amount of 36 ounces(say of ice cream...is that a cupful or glassful or a few tablespoonful?), I can not identify with these System Info numbers. Is my HD small, medium or large?. Or is it just enough, more than enough, plenty or too much in the context of my computing usage and my grandson's high speed games?

For the record, I am not a programmer(actually I have no clue what programmers do or can do). I am self taught struggling but having so much fun user(far far from IT credentials).

Is SSD a consideration concern? Is it something I replace my HD with? Or can it be an extra external HD? Or I should not concern myself with, at all?

 

[Patonb]

Is 320Gigs big? Not for a desktop or newer system. It was typival of HP's back then.

You wouldn't want to fully replace your hard drive. You can run 2 hard drives in the laptop, so you could do as I did.

Use the SSD as your windows drive, and put your old drive in as a data/more space drive.

To do this you use a backup software like Acronis, to take a copy of your drive and plunk it on to the new SSD, then delete/format the old drive to remove the old windows.
Your computer/windows doesn't change at all and you just cary on as you did.

If you re happy with the computer, i'd change nothing. A ram upgrade will not help speed things up, a SSD will, but are you unhappy with it now?

 

[pappi]

I'd change nothing since I am happy...no complaint.

But I really have no idea if I can be better with change. I can predict though I might be worse if I screw up making changes(not unlikely). I still consider myself very lucky in having replaced the keyboard successfully at first try . Thanks to the tutorial videos online.

Thanks guys for all your patience with me. You have been very helpful.

 

[Patonb]

Yha, The thing I noticed with a switch to the SSD are 35 sec reboots, and that is no lie. The other thing is programs pop open like magic. Word or excel are near instantaneous.

Besides that, there's not much else improvement.