Should I Upgrade to 2GB or 3GB of RAM for P4 Machine?

Post by **lordofduct** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:21 am

nice mobo... gives you room to expand. You shouldn't have any issues with RAM then with it.

Post by **racketboy** » Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:01 am

lordofduct wrote:nice mobo... gives you room to expand. You shouldn't have any issues with RAM then with it.

Thanks -- I did a lot of research on it at the time.
So what should I do now?

Post by **racketboy** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:41 am

So I should get the 2GB of pc3200 RAM and ditch the existing sticks?

Post by **marurun** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:54 am

I'm going to say it doesn't really matter. Go with the cheapest / easiest solution. There's no point micro-optimizing your current system.

Post by **racketboy** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:28 am

marurun wrote:I'm going to say it doesn't really matter. Go with the cheapest / easiest solution. There's no point micro-optimizing your current system.

Ok -- well I'll take that advice another step further. It's $5 cheaper to get a single 1GB stick as opposed to 2X 512MB (which would take advantage of dual-channel). (plus it would leave a slot availible if I did want an extra GB) What would you pick?

Post by **opethfan** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:34 pm

Stick with 1 gig for now, and save the money you were going to spend on 2 or 3GB to go towards a new mobo, CPU and RAM. A dual core Celeron (which overclocks like a dream if you want), ASUS motherboard and 2GB of DDR2 memory can be gotten for $150 now, if you're not a speed freak. Go for an extra $50 and you can get a faster Allendale processor, and a better motherboard such as one with the nForce chipsets.

It's not worth spending any more than $50 on that system right now, as with the high, high price of DDR1 memory, you're simply not getting the bang for your buck. 2GB of DDR1-400 is around $100, while for that you can get 4GB of DDR2-800 memory, which is twice as fast and twice the capacity (duh!).

Post by **racketboy** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:37 pm

Alright -- sounds cool.
I'll do the 1 extra GB now and see how the next year goes before upgrading to new guts.

Post by **opethfan** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:07 pm

racketboy wrote:Alright -- sounds cool.
I'll do the 1 extra GB now and see how the next year goes before upgrading to new guts.

That sounds like a good plan. 1GB more should remove any bottlenecks and keep apps running smoothly until the time comes for a gut swap.

Post by **racketboy** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:11 pm

oop I forgot to clarify if I should get the 1GB stick or 2X 556MB>

Post by **opethfan** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:29 pm

Well your chipset supports dual channel memory, so I'd say go for it.
I'll assume that you have 2x512MB now? So that you'll end up with:
512MB
512MB
512MB
512MB
All in dual channel. If you have a 1 gig stick, get another 1 gig stick instead.