Can more ram increase download speed..????

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rickkins
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Rickkins

Frankly, I know damn well it does not...but I got a very stubborn friend
who swears it does...regardless of what I tell him.

He'll be here tomorrow....so I want him to read this.

Thanks
 
Rickkins said:
Frankly, I know damn well it does not...but I got a very stubborn friend
who swears it does...regardless of what I tell him.

He'll be here tomorrow....so I want him to read this.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Not damned likely. RAM isn't used for downloads, hard drive space is. For
RAM to speed up download speeds:

First, you'd have to have a download speed faster than typical IDE bus
transfer speed, so that system RAM is filled as a temporary buffer. (SATA
interface is potentially faster, but then you'd need an even FASTER download
speed to fill up system RAM)
So let's do the math, assuming ATA100 IDE bus speed:
The computer can store downloaded data at up to 100MB/second on a ATA100
hard drive*. A 5M cable modem can download at about 500KB/second, or about
1/2MB/second. Or in other words, a rather slow IDE hard drive can store
data 200 times faster than a rather fast cable modem can download it. So,
the hard drive's own RAM buffer never gets filled, and thus the system RAM
is not a factor in download speed at all.

HOWEVER, Downloads can be -initiated- faster on a system that is performing
as well as possible. Ample system RAM is one part of that equation. So if
you are running artificial download speed tests, a system with sufficient
RAM quantity might -look- to be downloading faster than a system that is
starved for RAM. That is the only circumstance where more RAM might appear
to help download speeds. But the bigger the file downloaded, the smaller
the apparent download speed difference, until there will be NO difference
showing eventually. In other words, a download that completes in a few
seconds might have a higher KB/second number on a machine with sufficient
RAM. But a download that takes an hour or longer will have the same
KB/second number on the machine, regardless of how much system RAM that
machine has (as long as the OS will boot)

*Actual sustained data rate is probably 1/10th this speed, but still
SIGNIFICANTLY faster than even the fastest cable modems can download
 
Ricans said:
Frankly, I know damn well it does not...but I got a very stubborn friend
who swears it does...regardless of what I tell him.

He'll be here tomorrow....so I want him to read this.
Click to expand...
Thanks
Click to expand...


short story - NOPE! internet connection speed Vs. internet congestion Vs.
hard drive speed
 
Rickkins said:
Frankly, I know damn well it does not...but I got a very stubborn friend
who swears it does...regardless of what I tell him.

He'll be here tomorrow....so I want him to read this.
Click to expand...

RAM has no effect on download speed. Processor speed might have a
very small effect if your Internet connection is extraordinarily fast
(10 Mbps or beyond, 100 Mbps or beyond with modern systems).

The real determinant of download speed is your Internet connection
speed. Few Internet connections are fast enough to put any kind of
load on your computer. If you're one of the tiny minority lucky
enough to have a truly fast connection (hundreds of megabits per
second), the computer might be a minor factor.
 
short: NO, it does not.

Long: there is only one real parameter which effects your download speed
: its your internet connection.

all others may have very very little effects (as long as u dont use a
286 prozessor) or none at all.
the biggest should be the harddrive, then CPU, then other things
including the amount of RAM (on very (!!) low ram machines windows needs
more swapping and this could sligtly effect the download. but that would
only have any effect on very very slow machines. and even on these this
would make not much effect and more likely only for the first seconds of
the download. it would not effecting the download itself but more the
speed of the computer which can slightly effect the download speed)

i think on a todays system more ram would not give you a single byte
more per second in average.

all other parameter except the internet connection affects the download
speed also in so minor ways that it is not worth it to upgrade any of
them when you want a higher download speed (exception: grandpas 286)

this is my opinion.
 
Thanks. That's what I've been telling him.
He's got a P4 2.4gig laptop.
He went from 512m to 1g ram, and insists that he got a significant
speed boost as a result(in terms of downloading).
Further note that he does not do anything 'cpu intensive' either.
 
Rickkins said:
Thanks. That's what I've been telling him.
He's got a P4 2.4gig laptop.
He went from 512m to 1g ram, and insists that he got a significant
speed boost as a result(in terms of downloading).
Further note that he does not do anything 'cpu intensive' either.
Click to expand...
Sounds like he's trying to justify the extra memory to himself.

SteveH
 
Rickkins said:
Thanks. That's what I've been telling him.
He's got a P4 2.4gig laptop.
He went from 512m to 1g ram, and insists that he got a significant
speed boost as a result(in terms of downloading).
Further note that he does not do anything 'cpu intensive' either.
Click to expand...

Maybe he did...

If he has a bunch of background apps (fax, firewall, antivirus, antispam...)
running that take a bunch of RAM, and that caused overuse of the pagefile, then
the system would have to share the download disk writes with pagefile access.
If the extra RAM obviated the pagefile access, he may have actually seen an
increase in download throughput.
 
Ofcourse software runs faster in/with RAM etc...

The more RAM the better.

One explanation could be that windows xp is using larger file/disk caches to
speed up writing/reading from disk.

Many possibilities.

Bye,
Skybuck.
 
Internet download speeds are a function of the ISP service and modem being
used. RAM capacity of the computer has NO effect on download speeds.
 
Skybuck said:
Ofcourse software runs faster in/with RAM etc...

The more RAM the better.

One explanation could be that windows xp is using larger file/disk caches to
speed up writing/reading from disk.

Many possibilities.
Click to expand...

Yes, but only if the Internet connection is extremely fast to begin
with. That excludes most broadband connections, and definitely
excludes any type of dial-up or ISDN.
 
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