3GB of RAM?

So I'm looking at ordering a Vostro 1400 sometime today or tomorrow. I'm wondering if you think it's worth it to upgrade the ram from 2GB to 3GB for 90$. Since you can't get anything less than 2GB on the smart value package this doesn't seem like such a bad deal to me. I figure it will end up costing the same after shipping if I were to order a stick and install it myself anyway. Granted I'd then have a spare 1GB stick to sell, but I don't really want to worry about doing that. I don't need 3GB at the moment but since I'm going to keep the laptop for at least 3 years, and probably more like 4, I figure I don't want to worry about upgrading down the road. What would you do?

 

I would wait, go with 2 now, and upgrade to 4 when you need it, the prices will most likely be considerably lower too. Memory upgrades are easy, even the ones that require you to remove the keyboard, which I'm unfamiliar with the model in question so I dont know if you need to do that or not to access the second slot.

 

RAM prices are as low as they've been in years, and a 2GB stick is over $100+ shipping on Newegg. It actually is a good deal to upgrade through Dell.

The question is: Why do you need 3GB? If it's just a "feeling" that 2 won't be enough, it could still be a waste of money.

 

After you place your order, you can usually call Dell and have them "downgrade" the ram. You can probably save a few bux downgrading from 2gb to 1gb and getting your own ram.

 

1. $90 is a lot for 1GB of RAM.
2. You'd lose dual-channel operation with 3GB of RAM (must be size matched pairs, and AFIK, RAM doesn't come in 1.5GB sticks), and hence some performance.

 

Dell Ram upgrades are expensive. You're usually better off ordering an option with 1 stick and getting an additional stick online.

 

The $90 is going from a 1GB stick to a 2GB stick. To get 3GB of RAM you need 1x1GB and 1x2GB.

To upgrade from 1GB to 2GB later will cost him >$100. If he wants to do it that much, it's a fair price.

 

you can get 4 gigs for $160 to $170 so why not do it ?

 

A 32bit OS will not properly address 4GB of RAM or more, and there is almost no need unless you're doing crazy database or photo work, and then an Inspiron 1420 might not be the laptop for you anyway.

 

Doesn't Vista use like 2 gigs to run

 

If you use 3 gigs of RAM, will you have worse performance then two gigs with dual channel?

 

Memory bandwidth would "theoretically" be halved going from dual to single channel. In the real world, dual channel would usually be somewhere between 0-40% faster than single.

 

You wont lose dual channel operation, intel chipsets have supported mismatched dual channel operation since the 945 chipset, I do believe there is a slight performance hit, but it should be negligible, the point right now though is necessity, true its a little cheaper to upgrade NOW through dell, but you dont need it now, and depending on the apps you run may never really need it, bottom line, it wouldnt really hurt, but you would be better off applying that money towards something that would be immediately useful for you today.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2185333&postcount=4

 

Dang, that was an awesome explanation. But zero to 40%? 40% sounds a little high unless you are talking about very specific applications.

 

Intel® Flex Memory Technology Gives users a more flexible memory upgrade option by allowing different memory sizes to be installed while maintaining dual-channel mode/performance.

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/945g/index.htm

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605