2GB or 4GB of ram?? In a T400

I just got my T400 in the mail, and its quite nice. Not as nice as the sager i just owned, but close.

Ive searched around everywhere and cant seem to fins a answer for this problem. I have vista 64 installed, but only have 2gb of ram. I have yet to see ram usage go above 80%.

So as of right now, ive never fully maxed out the ram in this computer. But would it be any quicker of a machine if i installed 4gb??

Some people say yes, some people say it wont have any effect. just wundering what everyones opion here is.

 

get 4gb and get it from newegg, it'll be cheaper

 

Getting the ram from newegg was already my plan, thanks though, its way cheaper. Im just wundering if installing 4gb of ram on a 64bit operating system will unlock some "hidden vitural turbo mode", and make the whole machine faster.

I do play some games, but none of them are that intense due to the limitations of the 3470 card. Plus im building a desktop for that. Other than that, i do ALOT of audio recording/editing, and some photo work. But even with all of this ive never maxed out on 2gb ram.......... i dont think. I once shut the page file off on the harddrive, and the laptop freaked out saying it was out of space. Would having 4gb solve this maybe???

Im just trying to justify spending $100, lol

 

get 4gb ram and never look back

 

morbidrazor, I'm in the same boat as you. I have Vista x64 with 2 gb and I've never seen my RAM usage go over about 1.5 gb. So I've stayed with 2 gb. Unfortunately, that means I don't have a first-hand answer to your question.

But one thing I did do that made a noticeable improvement was upgrading my hard drive. Both drives were 7200 rpm, but... not all 7200rpm drives are created equal, or even close. Run HD Tune to test your hard drive speed... if your hard drive isn't that fast, I would upgrade that first before getting more RAM. (Look in the hardware forum for more info about hard drive performance.)

 

I would say wait for a while, until DDR3 is more widely adopted, and prices go down. Then, buy yourself another 2GB stick to put in.

 

I started off with 1 2GB stick, threw in another and now my machine blazes it's own trail. I highly recommend the upgrade.

 

Vista x64 actually uses more RAM than the x86 version—so the main reason for running x64 is because you plan to use 4 or more GB of RAM. If you don’t use applications that use lots of RAM, or plan to run numerous applications at one time, you will likely not see that much performance benefit from more RAM. However, the caching algorithm in Vista is designed to leverage all the RAM available so this still should improve perceived performance no matter what, even if it’s only a little. As for maxing out your RAM, you can shove 8GB in a T400.

 

Thanks BinkNR, and everyone else. When you meantioned the caching algorithm, that right there answered my queastion.

I just checked newegg, it looks like ram prices went up!! The ram i was looking at i think went up about $30!!

 

Always go for more RAM. You will never regret it. Especially with vista

 

2GB of DDR3 from Lenovo CPP is $49. $4 more than newegg.

I'd rather spend $4 more and have matched sticks.

And Morbid, I would recommend the additional ram. 2GB is the minimum for what I like to call 'fluid' use of Vista.

 

No.

Most people are misinformed or have this misconception. When you have enough memory, any extra or unused memory is not going to make your machine any faster. If you never saw Windows used more than 80% of your current memory, this means it doesn't need more or can't use everything you have already. Vista is not designed to leave you +20% memory, it will try to use (or cache) as much as possible. Any extra RAM, which will be sitting there, is wasted memory. The only thing Vista will try to do is to cache more programs into RAM by its SuperFetch feature, so the only thing that is gonna be faster is the launch time of more programs that were prefetched into cache.

If you use a lot of heavy programs, then the extra RAM will be useful. If not, then there will be a downside to this, now every time you boot up Vista, instead of SuperFetching for 2 GB, it will try to fetch (fill up) 3-4 GB. You will notice a much longer period of HDD activities at the beginning than before, unless you disable SuperFetch. If you use your laptop like a desktop and always use standby instead of full shutdown, then it's not so bad. But if you use it on the road often, then you will find fetching (caching) 3-4 GB of files every time you boot up the machine not very pleasant.

It's not a good idea to completely turn off pagefile, even if you have 4 GB of RAM.

You should spend that $100 on a better desktop GPU instead.

 

Max it out since RAM is so cheap now a days.

 

True - many programs depend on the pagefile, so turning it off will cause certain programs to crash. Many games also rely on the pagefile, and will not run if it is disabled.

DDR3 RAM is still quite pricey compared to other types of RAM, because it is not ubiquitous yet. In another half year or so, prices of DDR3 RAM will likely decrease as well. Hence, if you do not really need the extra 2GB now, don't buy it.

 

having 4GB is a very smooth experience for my thinkpad t500. i did not disable the page file but set the page file to custom 16Mb min and 512MB Max. i ran two xp vm and a game without any problems.

there are two models of ddr3 ram lenovo is selling, 2046 and 19**. i am having one of each, and there is not a problem. so get the cheaper one off lenovo website. the ram automatically takes the system warranty.

 

I agree with MidnightSun; it'll probably be cheaper soon. Still, you mentioned audio recording, which could benefit from 4 GB (depending on the complexity of your recording setup). I'm heavily considering a T400 to use (in part) for audio recording, and I'm planning on getting 4 GB from Newegg. They currently have a Kingston 2 GB stick for $50 with free shipping.


Sidenote:

Have you checked your T400's DPC latency? That'll give you an indication of how well it will perform in recording—whether you'll get "hiccups." See [THREAD=339028]this thread[/THREAD] and try the test if you have a moment.