Buying RAM For XPS M1330 - 3GB or 4GB?

Just found out today that there's specific hardware limitations in addition to Windows Vista 32-bit for 4GB RAM.

Theory aside, I'd like to get "real life" user feedback from XPS M1330 owners who have upgraded from 2GB to 3GB or 4GB. FYI, I use my laptop mostly for business, web design/programming, MP3/videos, surfing and will probably play light games like PES. Please see my signature for system specs.

Is the RAM upgrade significantly noticeable in terms of:
- startup and shutdown time?
- windows speed and responsiveness?
- application (e.g. IE, Word, etc.) speed and responsiveness?
- gaming speed and responsiveness?
- hard disk activity? (mine spins a lot and feels hot - 41 deg C)
- battery life?

Please also state 3GB or 4GB.

Thanks in advance.

 

I don't own the 1330, but I have a T61 which similar specs 3 GB is great. My other T61 with 4 GB I am going to have to upgrade to Vista 64-bit to see because of address limitations.

 

Based on your requirements, my suggestion is to stick with your 2GB or upgrade to 4GB. Yes, more memory definitely improves performance.

 

M1330 with 4 GB (3.5 visible to Vista 32-bit)

startup and shutdown time - Definitely better - how's 20 seconds from logo to sign-in on Vista?

windows speed and responsiveness - Somewhat more a function of the GPU, but since Vista is such a hog, I think you will notice the difference.

application (e.g. IE, Word, etc.) speed and responsiveness - More or less instant - Word starts up in under a second.

gaming speed and responsiveness - I haven't gamed, but I'm sure the extra RAM will help when Vista itself needs about 2 GB,

hard disk activity - If you shut off indexing you will see reduced disk activity vs. 2 GB, because it won't need to swap as much, though Vista still does swap even with 4 GB.

battery life - I never compared the two, though with reduced disk activity you would assume that battery life should be better.

Having worked with both configurations I am sure the 4 GB "feels" faster under Vista. And since you get to 3.5 GB, I'd go with 4 GB over 3 GB since you can get 4 GB for $120 shipped.

 

You have *got* to be kidding. How could more RAM even theoretically increase boot time and application launch time? I'm sorry, but this has to be pure imagination.

 

mini: as mentioned, forget theories. I'm looking for real user experience.

samuel613: Thanks for your reply.

Vista starts up ok for me but once I've logged in, the hard disk activity continues for almost 2 minutes (i.e. slow response). Apart from Sync Center and Eset Smart Security, I have the usual programs on startup. It was the same situation when I used AVG Free.

Shutdown is also slower than XP - takes about 15 seconds on average.

 

doesn't vista preload commonly used programs on your RAM? That would, theoretically, increase your boot and application launch times.

 

I just popped in 4gb of ram today so I can speak from my experience.

Boot time is slightly faster, maybe 2-3 seconds. Shut down time had a bigger improvement, faster by about 5 seconds.

If I load up firefox and word, there's no difference but with 4gb I can load up a lot more programs and they load up very quickly as if it was the only program running. With 2 gb.. after loading up 3 or 4 programs, you can feel the 5th program taking a bit longer to load.

Hard disk activity has definitely gone down quite a bit, probably the thing I am most impressed with so far.

 

In theory, if Windows Vista is using all of your RAM and you try to do anything, including starting a program, Windows will need to page part of what's running out to the swap file on the HDD , and only then load your program into RAM; whereas, with 4 GB, if you have available memory, it will load more or less instantly, depending on your drive performance.

Same idea with boot time.

 

1. Most RAM is used by VISTA for pure *caching* - and as such can be overwritten without syncing them to disk. I have a hard time believing Vista keeps 2Gb of *dirty* pages in memory.

2. Sure, Vista can preload programs into RAM before they are launched. But: a) 2Gb is more than enough to preload most or all programs you use, and b) IE is surely among the first to be preloaded, even on 2Gb machines.

3. Sure, if you have too little RAM, things will be slower because Vista needs to swap. 2Gb is not too little.

4. On boot, none of the above applies. *Everything* has to be loaded from disk. (And if Vista loads more from disk into RAM when you have 4Gb, bootup should be slower, not faster). Boot time depends mostly on harddrive speed (given identical software configuration).

5. Of course more RAM is better. But let's stick to reality.

It's all like saying a bigger harddrive makes Vista boot faster. Really.

Sorry for interrupting, tolkein666. I just have to speak up when I hear unreasonable things (astrology, faster boot with 4Gb etc). Use your own judgement.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208323


4GB of RAM for M1330

Transcend for $80, $87 shipped

2GB $39.99 (1 dimm)

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=193281

I just got 4GB from M1330 for under $100.

 

You're making a lot of assumptions about Vista's memory management. If, for whatever reason, Vista pages during startup, more RAM will make the system boot faster.

Are you prepared to categorically, definitively state that Vista will never page during the boot process? I'm not.

 

Let me put it this way: If Vista pages during boot with 2Gb RAM installed, it must be the most brain-dead OS ever to see the light of day.

But then again, I wouldn't rule that out completely, no.

Of course, things are different once you load 2Gb worth of applications at startup. But I doubt anyone has succeeded in doing that.