how much ram should I install?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mr . .
  • Start date Start date
M

Mr . .

I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots 184pin PC 333
or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB.

I'd like to upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much of a
difference will there be in the machine?

I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will be worth it speed wise... It won't
speed up the processor beyond the 1.3Ghz, but it should allow faster access
to applications>?

Mr.
 
Mr . . said:
I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots 184pin PC
333
or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB.

I'd like to upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much of a
difference will there be in the machine?

I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will be worth it speed wise... It
won't
speed up the processor beyond the 1.3Ghz, but it should allow faster
access
to applications>?
Click to expand...
You could go to 1Gig.
( Doubling the ram will make it a little quicker)
Or save the cash to put toward your new, faster machine.
 
Mr . . said:
I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots 184pin PC
333
or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB.

I'd like to upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much of a
difference will there be in the machine?

I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will be worth it speed wise... It
won't
speed up the processor beyond the 1.3Ghz, but it should allow faster
access
to applications>?

Mr.
Click to expand...

Most experts say 1.5 - 2GB is about right, now. But, Vista hasn't been
released yet.

So maybe 4-8GB would be about right? (only half joking)

I'd suggest your best solution would be to buy ONE stick of 1GB of DDR400,
as low of latency as you can afford, such as CAS2 or CAS2.5. Install that
with one stick of your Current RAM. That will give you over 1GB which
should work FINE for anything that you are running now. I don't think you'd
see a benefit of 2GB vs. (something over 1GB).

Plus, the DDR400 is somewhat likely to work in your next system (at that
time, buy another 1GB stick). Chipsets are moving to DDR2, but there's
still plenty of current mainboards that will support DDR400 RAM. And DDR2
offers no performance advantage, now or probably even years from now. -Dave
 
Thanks, I saw Compusa has a special going right now for a 1GB stick $89 with
a $30 rebate, so $59 for 1 GB sounds very reasonable. I'll move one of the
two 128's to another machine and have 1GB & 1 128 stick, so it'll be over
1Gb like you mentioned.

I'm glad to hear that the speed at 2Gb won't be that much more than the
'just over' 1Gb that I'll end up with.

Thanks!
Mr.
 
Mr . . said:
I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots
184pin PC 333 or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB.

I'd like to upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much
of a difference will there be in the machine?

I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will be worth it speed wise...
It won't speed up the processor beyond the 1.3Ghz, but it should
allow faster access to applications>?
Click to expand...

What operating system?
 
I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots 184pin PC 333
or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB.

I'd like to upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much of a
difference will there be in the machine?

I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will be worth it speed wise... It won't
speed up the processor beyond the 1.3Ghz, but it should allow faster access
to applications>?

Mr.
Click to expand...

Having 2GB would be useful for some applications, perhaps movie
editing, volume sorting, etc. Otherwise, I doubt you will see much
performance difference. Personally, I'd fill the two slots to the max
and use a pair of ram chips. Perhaps you can hold off until you get
Vista.
 
Mr . . wrote:

" I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots 184pin
PC 333 or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB. I'd like to
upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much of a difference
will there be in the machine? I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will
be worth it speed wise... It won't speed up the processor beyond the
1.3Ghz, but it should allow faster access to applications? "


You mean PC2700 / PC3200. You seem a bit confused about the rest of
your system too. There never was a 1.3GHz Sempron.
http://www.thedigerati.us/info/amdcpuchart.html#semp

Your system is likely to be one that would benefit from upgrades in a
number of areas. Just throwing 2GB RAM in it may not make the kind of
performance improvements you're looking for. If you can properly list
your system in its entirety then people can help you a lot more.

What do you use the system for? This obviously makes a big difference
in where the upgrades would be best.
 
two cents: what you want is basically a stop-gap - you're going to update
that machine in another year or so anyway most likely, so I'd spend as
little now and put the rest towards that new machine. add a second 256mb
dimm for $25 and be done w/ it. [that new machine will likely need DDR2,
so getting 1GB of DDR now would be a dead end]. XP w/ 512MB will run fine
for now (single user, no fast-user-switching), noticable better than the
256 you have now. when the time comes for vista get a new machine that
includes it.

before spending the $25, ask any friends/work-mates if they may have a
stick lying around; 256mb pc2700 sticks are tossed out w/ the bath water
these days.
 
Cuzman said:
Mr . . wrote:

" I have a sempron 1.3GHz with a mother board that has two slots 184pin
PC 333 or PC400. I have 256 installed and the max is 2 GB. I'd like to
upgrade the ram. How much should I go for? How much of a difference will
there be in the machine? I can afford 2 GB, but wonder if it will be
worth it speed wise... It won't speed up the processor beyond the 1.3Ghz,
but it should allow faster access to applications? "
Click to expand...
Your system is likely to be one that would benefit from upgrades in a
number of areas. Just throwing 2GB RAM in it may not make the kind of
performance improvements you're looking for. If you can properly list
your system in its entirety then people can help you a lot more.

What do you use the system for? This obviously makes a big difference in
where the upgrades would be best.
Click to expand...

For most people's use, 512 MB is plenty. Just add another 256MB stick to
the other slot. You will likely notice a significant performance boost,
mainly due to decreased swapping from RAM to disk. You can go to 1 GB if
you do a lot of multitasking or heavy photo editing, but anything more than
that will be overkill.
 
Windows 2000 Professional right now. I have no real intentions of upgrading
to Vista, at least on this machine... I'd probably buy a new machine with it
installed prior to paying for just the operating system.
 
The system info page indicates the following:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Version 5.0.2195 Service Pack 4 Build 2195
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name THEOLDERONE
System Manufacturer KM400_
System Model AWRDACPI
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~1334 Mhz
BIOS Version Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Windows Directory C:\WINNT
System Directory C:\WINNT\system32

I'm using the machine for photo editing, website editing, online games like
Halflife 2, etc.
 
Mr said:
Windows 2000 Professional right now. I have no real intentions of
upgrading to Vista, at least on this machine... I'd probably buy a
new machine with it installed prior to paying for just the operating
system.
Click to expand...

pay no attention to the ****wit known as john doe, he is only right 1 time
in a 1000 at best

you had better watch it too or he will call you a troll when you disagree
with his ignorant, knuckle dragging, moronic ass. OH MY!
 
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