2gig ram vs 7200rpm

I would upgrade the ram since Vista does like ram.

RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM RAM..........you get the point.

Depending on the layout of the laptop itself and your ability to access the HDD, I'd go ahead and upgrade the HDD, only if you're unable to access the drive.

Since it's a Vista machine, it will eat RAM like none other.

It's really your call.

If youve got a 5400 rpm drive, the performance upgrade in the extra speed will truly be negligible unless you are worried about benchmarks. but for average everyday computing, you wont notice much performance improvement with the HDD.

you will notice greater improvement with the RAM, i should think. Especially if its a Vista machine. yes, Vista is VERY RAM hungry. and even with XP, it will help the machine run more quickly and smoothly.

besides that, if you dont opt for a new drive, you wont have to re image a new drive and deal with all that. RAM is the quicker easier upgrade, and i think the best upgrade for the money.

ev

if you only using half you RAM then I doubt you need to upgrade anything :P

what were you doing when you checked the performance widget?

Try opening a few browsers, open photoshop if you use it or a game and then check the widget.

Just wanna check my facts to see if im on the same page and not talking out my ###. number one, you currently have 1 gig or less installed and were looking at going to 2 gigs? number two, you have a 5400 and it runs ok, and your thinking about either ram or a faster HDD to get the puter to move a little more quickly?

do you have any programs that run that are memory intensive? i know that maps and streets is on my laptop and it LOVES the ram. so does google earth for whatever reason. anyhow, if you have big programs you use a lot, get the ram. the hard drive wont speed them up as much as having more RAM installed will.

Also installing RAM is a way faster and easier upgrade that gives you the same benefits or better.

Look at it this way. most puter makers say Vista needs 1 gb of RAM to run and be compatible. My puter is running Vista Ultimate and the AVERAGE RAM usage is around 45-48%. and yeah i do run some bigger programs, so that may not be average, but from other people who dont necessarily run super big programs or tend to do a lot of multitasking, they are noticing about the same usage. at my peak i can use up to about 70 something % of the RAM installed and i have 2 gb of RAM installed.

That said, with Vista, 2gb of RAM, and a 5400 RPM hard drive, this puter is very fast and nimble and i have YET to wait on ANYTHING to open up or run.

ev

the hard disk should only affect loading times, but once everything is loaded into RAM, the OS runs everything from RAM right? (at least that's how photoshop and computer games do it) So, most daily operation should occur in RAM.

Based on that, I'd go with RAM.

yeah, no sense in giving up space just for a marginal bump in speed. and to be honest, with the extra RAM, superfetch will work nice for you. im noticing that with Vista everything i do is noticably faster than XP was. I did my hard drive first, because i wanted the space, and stuck with a 5400 rpm drive. it did help getting the new drive, even though i already had a 5400 rpm drive, but i didnt really notice a BIG difference til i did the RAM.

When i dumped the two stick of 512 mb made by Hynix that came in the puter as OEM, and switched to two Crucial 1gb sticks this thing really took off.

The other thing i noticed was that XP did run a LOT faster after changing out the ram. certain programs like firefox, and when i multitasked, things just popped up a lot faster and i never saw an hourglass again.

The other thing i noticed, presumably due to superfetch, is that Vista boots faster, Vista returns from sleep faster, and hibernates better. Generally, all around, with 2gb of RAM Vista performs really well. knowing how much it likes RAM though, i wouldnt wanna try it with just a single gig of RAM.

Its my opinion, only an opinion, that RAM will give you the best bang for the buck and be a lot quicker and less headache to install. plus you keep the storage space.

ev

Before our computer store closed down I was fortunate to play around with some of the new laptops with 2GB RAM and Vista. With two HP DV9000 series laptops having similar 160gb hard drives and 1.66 Core2Duo CPUs; the one with 2GB of memory was MUCH faster in every respect that I could test on the floor.

Windows Vista IS a memory monster. I usually told my customers to treat 1GB of RAM in Vista like 512MB RAM in XP. With 2GB of RAM, it literally felt like you had more "leg-room" in performance....And i'm not talking about gaming performance either. Everyday computing, even navigating through windows was drastically improved during startup and at idle. Startup was about 1 minute faster from what I can remember.

Do RAM first, then save up for the 7200rpm hard drive. The 7200rpm HD upgrade I did on my old HP 2 years ago was a decent improvement, but the RAM is what really made the difference.

The cheapest i've seen so far for 2GB matched sticks is from Crucial directly. a 2GB kit (2x1GB) for my HP DV2130 [Intel T5500] is only 87.99. Cheaper than Newegg I think. Do it and Vista will open up a lot!

Yeah, I'd Definitely recommend Crucial. I went with that brand too, and i have an HP too, and it works like a charm.

ev

Without getting too technical and keeping it simple. 2gb of RAM would be better in this case. I tried and tested both methods myself since I always have these parts in stock. Vista prefers/likes memory. I recently attended an Intel Mobile Devices conference and they confirmed this issue too.

The faster RPM hard drive will only help you in random seeks and load times. Otherwise there's not much else reason to get a 7200RPM drive unless you've upgraded everything else. So I'd say RAM would be your priority in this instance.

You don't notice a huge increase in speed between 1GB and 2GB RAM on normal usage, unless you are doing Photoshop or some memory intensive application.

So the answer is it really depends.

You can do 1GB RAM and 7200RPM drive or 2GB RAM and 5400RPM drive.

the performance between them on normal usages ain't going to be noticable...