Is going from 2 GB of RAM to 3 GB worth it?

I currently have 2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 (2 DIMM I know stupid me ) in my T61:


Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T8100 (2.1GHz 800MHz 3MBL2)

Operating system: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium

Operating system Language: Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium - English

Display type: 15.4 WXGA TFT

System graphics: Intel GMA X3100 GM965

Keyboard Language: US English

Hard drive: 160GB Hard Disk Drive, 5400rpm

Optical device: DVD Recordable, Ultrabay Enhanced

WiFi wireless LAN adapters: ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless LAN Mini-PCIe US/EU/LA/ANZ

Battery: 6 cell Li-Ion Battery


Is replacing one of the 1 GB stick with a 2GB one worth 35CAD ( http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10101436&catid=) ? would it make the system a lot faster when performing basic tasks?

 

no, you would have to be gaming or photoshopping to see any difference, unless you used the extra GB to turn off your pagefile.

 

ull get in 1 dimm the dual chann wich would be a step up in performance... to make the story short... u will only see difference in the ram when u are using a lot of ram
let me explain... if u use ur computer with win xp, and open messenger, that would be like what? 500mb of memmory used? it doesnt matter that much if u have 1gb or 1tb of ram, u wont notice since u wont use it... if u really feel that u are using a lot of virtual memory (not enough ram) then u should see the difference and ofc will be worth

 

Worth only if the current programs you are using are being bottlenecked by the RAM. Else, you won't notice anything much.

 

I won't do much gaming or photoshopping at all. Can softwares like C++ visual studio and Matlab eat up a lot of memory though?

 

1g ram is good enough for visual studio and matlab under winXP,but for vista 1g is the bottleneck of your system

 

2GB of RAM for Vista is a pretty good medium, but upping it to 3GB wouldn't hurt either and would probably show a modest increase in daily usage responsiveness (the same cannot be said for XP as it does not use SuperFetch).

Another way to look at it is if you up to 3GB now and might want to upgrade to 4GB later, you'd only need another 2GB stick. With RAM so cheap nowadays it's really up to whether you feel like spending the money. For most stuff you'll be doing quite well with 2GB, but with Vista, more RAM is always better for overall system performance and it gives you that much extra headroom for multi-tasking/the future.

 

From your system, IMO is better to replace your harddrisk with better rpm, like 7200 rpm; if you plan to upgrade.

I am using 2GB RAM and never see any trashing or alike. Switching one windows to another is blazingly fast (Office program, Outlook 07 with 15 GB pst file, web brosing, pdf, data base programs). I think paging management is Vista better than XP.

For some scenario in Vista, harddisk usage is the bottleneck no matter how big your RAM is. Vista still relying on harddisk for page file (in default condition) and harrdisk access is inevitably required for working with large and various data file at once.
Don't forget: OS data, data files, etc STILL need time to upload from harddisk to RAM. Using faster harddisk will improve speed especially for scenario in which you oftenly work with many data files.

 

Will it improve performance yes. Will it improve performance for you enough to warrant the increase, id say no.

MY TIP OF THE DAY:when buying a computer make sure you only have to add ram to get to the max, not remove and then add, saves money in the long run.

I'd say don't do it unless you are really noticing your computer bogging down alot, then what was said above by replacing the page file with ram would help.

 

Why don't you periodically look at your memory usage in the Task Manager and see how close you come to the current 2GB limit? I've got a desktop system that will take 64GB of memory, but I never get much above 2, so my 4GB suits me well (though I am using 4 1GB sticks to help with flow, but that's not really a reason to bump memory on a laptop in my opinion).

 

I've only got 2GB or RAM, and it still isn't maxed out even with browser, e-mail, IDE and text editor open at the same time. I think 3GB would be a waste, since 1GB would just be sitting there doing nothing. Have a look at your usage and see if it ever goes over the 2GB.

 

Since I haven't done a clean install yet, it says about 46 % or 960MB at idle and can go up to 60% or 120MB of the physical memory when I have several applications open at once.

I guess I don't really need it then.

Thanks a lot for the input guys!

 

Memory usage scales depending on how much memory you have. The more physical memory you have, the less Windows will have to cache data in the page file.