256MB vs 512MB

[woel]

Hi!

Boring question perhaps....
Is it worth upgrading to 512MB from 256MB RAM?
I use winxp pro....

/Leo

[RichL]

Yes. 256-512mb is worthwhile. It did make a noticable difference on my Windows 2000 system.
Although I've just upgraded from 512mb to 768mb, and to be honest I cant see the difference. I probably dont strain the system enough.

Given the cost of RAM at the moment (ie just about to rise), its probably worth doing it now.

[VJ]

FWIW, I went from 128 MB to 384 MB on my PII-450. Using Windows 2000, the difference is certainly noticable...


Jörg

[The PIT]

Depends what you're doing. If editing large pictures you'll certainly notice a differance. If you daft bugger like me and using a chess prog like fritz 7 and set the hash tables to 300mb you need 512mb of ram.

[LvR]

Personally - I dont think that anybody can say definitely "yes" or "no". - Your system can tell you in no uncertain terms if it is worthwhile or not given YOUR particular usage of the system as it stands before the upgrade:

Go ctrl/alt/del/ find taskmanager and then performance. Minimise and leave this baby running for a day or two while you do your worst to the machine (use it as you would normally). Come back and note the "physical memory" available figure and compare that with the "commit charge" peak figure.

If you have more physical memory available than what you have ever required during the 2 days of test operation (reported by the peak "committed charge" figure) you dont have to upgrade - if you do you are wasting valuable beer money.

[KilrB]

When I went XP i was generally dissapointed with the performance even with several tweaks to speed it up. I am a Window freak, and at any given time I'll have 6-12 windows open I work with photo's and home movies quite abit and gaming. I was only running 256MB at the time and heard that XP was a resource hog and decided to up it to 512.I was never really pleased with XP until I added more RAM.

[Wombat]

Running XP, 512 is the minimum you'd want.

[DentyCracker]

True. I gave my sister 256 MB of SDRAM in exchange for her Maxtor UATA133 40GB HD that wouldn't be recognized by her BXboard bios (MS 6147), and desperately want to buy 256 more to get back to 512. The difference is palpable.