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

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:25 am

I'm looking to upgrade the RAM in my 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 WinXP machine.
I currently have 1GB, but as I've mentioned in the past, my combination of heavy Firefox usage (average of 20 tabs open at a time), a good amount of Photoshop work, and converting videos to Xvid, I could use a little more muscle.

An extra GB in the form of two 512MB sticks would be about $60, but I could max out the 32-bit XP's limit of 3GB with two 1GB sticks for $120.

So, bottom line: 2GB total for $60 or 3GB total for $120?

Post by **Funk, E** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:27 am

RAM is always your friend. The more the better, generally.

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:35 am

Funk, E wrote:RAM is always your friend. The more the better, generally.

Yeah, for the most part, but you also have the law of diminishing returns

Post by **Funk, E** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:00 am

It'll certainly help with Photoshop, though. I figure that the 3GB is worth it, especially with the video stuff and graphics work.

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:03 am

Funk, E wrote:It'll certainly help with Photoshop, though. I figure that the 3GB is worth it, especially with the video stuff and graphics work.

I've been googling a bit on the subject and supposedly Windows 32-bit apps only support up to 2GB each. So Photoshop would only use 2GB at the max and any of the remaining 1GB that isn't being used by anything else would go to waste...

Post by **Funk, E** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:07 am

I read that SP2 fixed that, though I may be misremembering.

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:18 am

Funk, E wrote:I read that SP2 fixed that, though I may be misremembering.

Oh. Maybe I was reading something outdated then....

Post by **GSZX1337** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:15 pm

Are you using DDR2 RAM? If you're using DDR1 RAM, you're not going to be able to transfer your RAM if you decide to build a new 'puter. For the tasks you are doing, the CPU is going to be the bottle neck, other than gaming, I see no reason to get any more RAM than 1GB.

Post by **ImportBoy** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:28 pm

More RAM the better - I always advocate more RAM to everyone. Preinstalled ammounts RAM in some retail computers just baffles me. Though at some point the processor will be the bottleneck - which would seem to be at issue in your case. Xvid conversion relies more on CPU resources then RAM I imagine; photoshop a combination of both. You should try to see how much of a processor update your motherboard might support.

XP 32-bit does not have a 3GB 'limit'. You can install 4GB just fine (provided your motherboard suppports it). Just remember with 3GB I don't think you'd be able to do use dual-channel. Same thing with 1 1GB stick and 2 512MB ones.

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Feb 15, 2008 1:15 pm

Well, we had a CPU conversation earlier:
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4080

Seems like the consensus was that it wasn't really worth it.

And the RAM is DDR PC2700