Should I add more RAM?

[EXP]

Currently my system is as follows:
Pentium 4 Processor 530 3.0GHz
ATI Radeon X300SE 128MB PCI-Express
Twinmos 2x512MB PC3200 DDR400 CL2.5
Seagate 80GB SATA HDD 8MB cache 7,200rpm
300W PSU
Windows XP Home SP2

I'm thinking of adding another 1GB(2x512) of RAM, bringing it to a total of 2GB(4x512).
Will it help improve anything? Like gaming, multi-tasking, or other system performance and etc? Right now I can't really afford to get a new and better graphics card due to tight budget and also my lousy PSU which is just only 300 watts. Do you recommend 2GB of RAM? Or do you think that's just only a waste of money? I don't mind spending a bit on the RAM though but will the excess memory bring the whole performance down? This is what I'm worrying.
Any advice from you guys will be appreciated. :mrgreen:

[nizzy1115]

i think 2 gigs is excessive at this point and not really necessary. In my opinion it is more of an overkill unless you are doing huge photo editing or video editing. Id save your money and get a new psu/graphics card and keep 1 gig ram

[belama]

i think 2 gigs is excessive at this point and not really necessary. In my opinion it is more of an overkill unless you are doing huge photo editing or video editing. Id save your money and get a new psu/graphics card and keep 1 gig ram

I agree with that. actually 2 gigs will possibly be a bit slower than 1gig. Because 1 gig is sufficient for most use, it will take more time for your pc to check all that memory. Wait longer before spending on more ram.

[EXP]

belama, you said it will take more time for the pc to check all the memory. Is it during the bootup or...?

By the way, thanks nizzy1115 and belama. I guess I will abort the idea of getting more ram then. :mrgreen:

[EXP]

Can anyone answer this? Thanks.
belama, you said it will take more time for the pc to check all the memory. Is it during the bootup or...?

[Catweazle]

Memory check during bootup is being referred to there.

[EXP]

So a little time will be spent on checking the memory only during bootup, right? Will it check the memory during Windows? Or just only the bootup only? I don't mind taking a little more time to boot up the whole system. I just want to know will it cause anything to be slow during Windows.
Thanks. :)

[Catweazle]

It will only check at startup.

It will not improve performance for everyday computing tasks.

It will not slow down Windows.

[EXP]

Ah, thanks a lot. You have answered all my queries. Lol.

[belama]

Sorry for not being clear. Catweazle said it right. 2 gigs is just not a must right now.
I myself have 1 gig and it is enough for programming and gaming...

[jbennet]

2 - 4 gig + if u want really new games, video editing and VISTA

1 gig is ok for most games (on my 1gb machine BF2 left me with 6mb ram and 2 gig of pagefile used)

512 is ok for office etc....

256 can be used but slowwwwwwwwwwwwwww

128 dont even go there