D520 Ram Upgrade.

I was just thinking, I only have 1 GB right now. How much do you think of a performance increase would i have if i upgraded to 4GB's. To max it out. Ram is now very cheap.. - Last time i bought ram, it was $125 for a 512 Chip for the Dell Dimension 2350...

Also, does windows XP read 3.5 or 4 GB? I for some odd reason, i think i remember reading 3.5 Gb would only be used if you installed 4GB in to a Win XP 32 system.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_xp

Also, what are decent brands, and websites? Is "Kingston" and "Crucial" memory still good?

I would also like to upgrade to Vista Premium next spring, and think the 4GB will help out.

Thanks.

D520
Intel Celeron M 1.73GHz
40GB 5400 RPM drive
Other Std Eqt.

 

First off, you won't see much of a performance increase with that Celeron bogging things down. Also, the only version of Windows XP that will see all 4GB of RAM is Professional x64. I'd just go up to 2 or 3GB instead of spending even more on 4GB of RAM. As for brands, from what I know, Crucial is still good, but I'd be iffy about Kingston being that it's a brand that's sold at Wal-Mart.

 

The D520 supports up to 4GB of memory. As datamonger suggested, though, this is one of the few times I'd recommend a processor upgrade before a memory upgrade; you could definitely do with a cheap CD or C2D, even something in the T2x00 series is worlds better.

That being said, the most memory you'll see with a 32bit OS is indeed closer to 3GB, but if you're going to upgrade your OS, you could go for a 64bit flavor of Vista (hell get 7 for that matter), and make use of the full 4GB.