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A performance increase 512mb RAM vs 1024mb ( 1 gig ) ram?

post #1 of 20
7/13/04 at 3:04pm
Thread Starter 
I was wondering if 1 gig of ram (DDR 400) will make a differance in gaming and windows apps versus 512 MB (DDR 400).

Thanks,
Prog
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post #2 of 20
7/13/04 at 3:39pm
Yup. Get the gig of RAM.
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post #3 of 20
7/13/04 at 3:54pm
Most defintely.... ALOT less paging for most games and apps. I personally turned off my paging file and have had no problems running any games I play: BF1942, BFV, X-plane 7, Far Cry, Lock-On and so on....
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post #4 of 20
7/13/04 at 3:54pm
Its a very big difference. I just upgraded my i9100 to 1 gb of ram and it is well worth the cost.
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post #5 of 20
7/13/04 at 4:03pm
Is it as much as a difference as 256 to 512?
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post #6 of 20
7/13/04 at 4:46pm
it doesn't really matter about the performance factor. more ram is always better. unless you get like 8 gigabytes and have no real use for it, then it's just a waste of money and you may actually get degraded performance.
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post #7 of 20
7/13/04 at 4:46pm
yes, get it
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post #8 of 20
7/14/04 at 12:29am
Okay, I have to choose between an upgrade to a 60GB 7200RPM HDD and 1024MB of RAM. Which would be better. Both would help overall performance, but I am concerned about gaming. Make a wild estimate and tell me how many % faster would my laptop be in gaming if I had 1024mb of RAM.
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post #9 of 20
7/14/04 at 12:41am
hrmmm, well if i am getting it rite.... with 1024 ram you will offcourse have pagefiling off, and once you do that you will notice the diff rite away. Basically, paging slows down game performance alot and by having it turned off you "MIGHT" be able to turn up the video settings"A LITTLE BIT MORE" and get no lag whatsoever. Another thing is the loading times will improve too. Aside from gaming, you programs will load faster from WIndows media player to Office documents, and more ram will allow you have more programs opens at a time and not getting slow downs. But just to make it confusing for you a hard drive upgrade would do equally good if not better.
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post #10 of 20
7/14/04 at 12:47am
Indeed, that makes it more confusing. RAM would help FPS more than a HDD would, right? Framerate is the biggest concern.
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post #11 of 20
7/14/04 at 12:59am
this should answer all of your questions =)
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=28157

Listen to waht Sakor says, He's the most experienced here.
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post #12 of 20
7/14/04 at 1:07am
Thanks. I guess it's the HDD upgrade then. I've been wanting an external, so I can enclose the 30G i have. What kind of hard drive do I need? can I take any 2.5" notebook drive off of Newegg?
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post #13 of 20
7/14/04 at 1:19am
Thread Starter 
get the HD upgrade first... then the ram
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post #14 of 20
7/14/04 at 10:25am
To do both would cost $400, which is more than I have. $200 is a lot for a hard drive.
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post #15 of 20
7/14/04 at 11:07am
512MB -> 1GB RAM will not really affect framerates in the majority of games, and neither will 4200rpm -> 7200rpm HD. However the benefits of the HD ouside of a gaming environment are much more readily noticed than the RAM upgrade.

The Hard drive that is the true bottleneck of computers at the moment because they are still mechanical whereas everything else is electrical, and this bottleneck will remain so until they come up with another method of large and reliable long term data storage.

Minimising the bottleneck with faster hard drives will always yield very positive results, in this case outweighing the 512->1024 RAM. If it was 256->512 RAM or something like that it would be another matter, but currently 512MB is enough for the majority of users and the greater benefit lies with the 7200rpm HD.

You are making the right choice with the Hard drive, and it is worth the $200 I assure you

stu
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post #16 of 20
7/14/04 at 11:09am
I don't need 60GB, though. This one is about 145 dollars, is it a good kind? http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=H4014R9200
Its a hitatchi 40 Gig. How much battery life would this drain, moving from 4200 to 7200?
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post #17 of 20
7/14/04 at 11:13am
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...146-037&depa=0
is this too good to be true? 60gb 7200 RPM for 60 bucks!!! This looks like a sure-fire buy. I think other members would want in on this deal, sticky a post with this item!!!
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post #18 of 20
7/14/04 at 11:55am
Too bad it is not available for order. I would buy this in a second. I am guessing the price is a misprint.
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post #19 of 20
7/14/04 at 12:08pm
Yeah, price will be a misprint, usually runs US$200+... there is a topic on the general board regarding this as well.

That 40GB drive you pointed out is not suited to normal laptop usage. It is the E7k60 model that is designed for continous 24/7 usage in blade servers and the like.... it is not desgined to be revved up and down (turned on and off) frequently therefore would have a higher failure rate that regular laptop HD's under normal usage.

stu
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post #20 of 20
7/14/04 at 1:30pm
MIsprint it is.
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