Quick Question/Opinion

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

So I have seen all this talk about laptops and such lately. In particular that of RAM. For ages I wanted to boost my RAM. Anyways, I checked out a site Psy had mentioned, and I could get Gig or two of ram pretty cheap. Anyways, why I ask if it is suck a good idea or not is because my laptop is about 3 years old now. And it already has 512MB and has a max capacity of 2GB, so I was wondering if it is worth getting some more RAM, should I get just 1GB or 2GB? Since if I get one it would be cheape and I would be just slightly less than 2GB with my old RAM.

Thanks in advance!

[Rostum]

It depends really. Sure you might be able to get a couple extra gigs of RAM, but it depends if it's worth getting. Not all computers run the same speed RAM. What speed, in Mhz, is your motherboard's RAM slots? Is it DDR? DDR2? DDR3?

Also, what RAM do you have now? And what stuff do you do with your computer?

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I basically inputed the type of computer I have and it told me what kind of RAM I should get.

According to the site: "Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 1GB per slot.*"

I only have two slots. :/

I have the 512MB that came with it. :/ I use my laptop for university stuff plus the occasional gaming but it tends to lag a lot during gaming once it becomes more intense (such as later time periods in Civ IV). Also, it tends not to like running Firefox, MSN and WinAmp at the same time though it works but will not take onto multitasking much or if it does, it lags. :/

I also just broke my p key, it works but the actually key top is gone...

[o_O]

The first thing I'd consider is whether or not you're planning to upgrade any time soon. In a computer of that age I'd assume that you're using DDR RAM at the moment, and upgrading to a new machine from now is likely to result in a newer motherboard (DDR2 or 3) which will be incompatible with your current RAM.

Also, what kind of stuff do you do on your machine? If you game a lot then you would benefit from more RAM, however upgrading your memory won't make much of a difference if your CPU or GPU isn't powerful enough to warrant having more. For example, if you buy enough RAM to play a recent game such as Mass Effect but your processor or graphics card isn't powerful enough to play it, you're going to be wasting money. At 512MB currently, I estimate that this is something you definitely need to consider, so if you post your CPU/GPU specs (or just the make and model of computer if you prefer) then somebody here will be happy to give you some more solid advice.

The type of improvement you are likely to see with an increase in RAM is when you're doing something that requires a large amount of data to be accessible to a program at a given moment, e.g. some of the heavier stuff in Photoshop, compiling large programs or playing higher-end games.

EDIT: Ok, well you mentioned that it lags while playing games - This is likely to be caused by an underpowered CPU or GPU rather than RAM. Again, the computer model would be handy to know here. :p

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

It is a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop.

Intel Pentium M 1.60GHz, 504MB RAM. That's all that System Properties>General says.

At the moment I have no desire to play any new games, but if I ever get a new computer I'd have that in consideration. Just right now, cannot afford a new computer. Though when I do get one, it will be a desktop.

[Rostum]

Hmm, if you aren't going to upgrade any time soon and the RAM is fairly cheap, just throw in 2GB. It'll make a bit of a difference for you. As long as you aren't spending heaps on the RAM, though.

[crono_logical]

If it's a laptop, I'd consider maxing the RAM out (or as close two whilst using identical size sticks) - you're highly unlikely to upgrade the motherboard only to something that takes different sort of RAM, you'd likely get a whole new machine when the time comes. I upgraded my 6 year old laptop from 768 MB to 2 GB recently, and even that made a noticable performance difference for me :p