Member Avatar for 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:

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Short summary and practical checklist that builds on the thread (agreeing with and expanding on points from , and ):

An upgrade to 2 GB from 1 GB will help only if your system is actually running out of RAM (heavy multitasking, large maps/textures, video/photo editing). Windows XP (32‑bit) tops out at 4 GB of physical memory, and on 32‑bit clients some of that address space is reserved for devices (so you usually see ~3.2–3.5 GB usable with 4 GB installed). (learn.microsoft.com)

Quick way to decide before buying: reproduce your normal workload, open Task Manager → Performance and watch Commit Charge / Page File (PF) usage and Pages/sec. If the paging file is near full or Pages/sec is high under normal use, extra RAM will help. If not, you’ll get little benefit — a faster GPU or a better PSU for a GPU upgrade will usually give bigger gaming gains than extra RAM alone. (flylib.com)

Practical install notes (build/compatibility tips): prefer a matched kit (2×1 GB) instead of mixing a second 2×512 kit; mixing modules can force slower timings or compatibility fallbacks and can be harder to troubleshoot. Check the motherboard manual for which slots yield dual‑channel operation, update BIOS if needed, and after installation run a full memory test (bootable MemTest86) to verify stability. If you later add a new GPU, size the PSU to the GPU maker’s recommendation (300 W is likely marginal for many midrange cards). (pcbuildadvisor.com)

A final note on boot time: as worried, some BIOSes used to do longer full-memory POST tests (that gets longer with more RAM). That cost is only at startup; you can usually pick a BIOS/POST diagnostic level if it’s annoying. (en.wikipedia.org)

If the goal is gaming on that P4 + X300SE combo, prioritize a reliable PSU and a modest GPU upgrade when budget allows; add RAM only if your measurements (Task Manager / paging) show it’s the bottleneck.

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Member Avatar for 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

Member Avatar for 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.

Member Avatar for 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:

Member Avatar for 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...?

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Memory check during bootup is being referred to there.

Member Avatar for 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. :)

Member Avatar for Catweazle

It will only check at startup.

It will not improve performance for everyday computing tasks.

It will not slow down Windows.

Member Avatar for EXP

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

Member Avatar for 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...

Member Avatar for 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

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