Would upgrading my RAM increase speed in this particular pc?

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dominican2589

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After asking here before whether my Dell Dimension 8300 would accept newer RAM technology and finding out that it does not, I started to think whether I should spend the money on getting DDR400 ram which is what my PC accepts and if it was worth the price. I've decided that I want to upgrade but I am not sure if I will really see performance

I currently use it basically as a Vista media center pc to record my tv and then I use an extender which I use for my tv watching in my bedroom. Every now and then it is also used for web browsing and converting some videos so that I can use my extender.

It can be really slow at times because using the extender is basically like having two people logged in at the same time, repeating certain processes for each user such as eshell.exe for the media center. Sometimes the extender does not respond right away to the remote but I am not sure if that is the extender's fault or if its because the computer is slow.

The main specs are a P4 Hyper-thread 3.0GHz processor with 768 ram. I have 4 banks, 2 with 256mb and 2 with 128mb. I know that is very low, especially for a vista pc which is what it making me want to upgrade. My upgrade would be adding 2GB of ram, taking out the 128mb sticks and keeping the 256mb sticks to add to the 2GB that I would be getting.

So what is your opinion, should I shell out the money and see an increase in performance or would I just be wasting my money?
 
You'd definitely benefit from the extra ram, but at the same time you have to decide if it's gonna be worth for you. When you've got something so old, sometimes it's a better investment to get a whole new pc rather than trying to keep an older, slower one fast enough to keep up with todays software.

To answer your question though, yes you will see an increase in performance.
 
darn, how can it be slow "sometimes" with 768mb. an upgrade would defenitely get you moving faster. and as you said yourself, you can ditch the 128mb sticks and ad 2g sticks.

this is probably the cheapest kit you'll find

Newegg.com - G.SKILL Value 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model F1-3200PHU2-2GBNT - Desktop Memory

i think the required memory for vista is 1gb, but ive read that you can't really start using vista effectively without atleast 2g of memory.
 
well since its just going to be used for basic computing as I mentioned, I think I would be better off updating this old technology instead of saving to buy a new pc.

Muffin Man, that is the same one I was looking at. But looking at 1GB individual stick from G.Skill, I can get it for a total of 55.98 which saves me $2. It has the same model number on it except for the size and the number of ram sticks.

1G: Model F1-3200PHU1-1GBNT
2G: Model F1-3200PHU2-2GBNT

Could I get the same performance buying the sticks apart than if buying them together in a kit?
 
well, i had looked up your pc and found that it supported dual channel memory so i linked the cheapest kit they had.

i don't know if they will still work in dual channel if you buy two separate sticks and use them together. i didn't really think $2 would make a difference.
 
your right, better that i know the 2 are identical instead of buying two that are the same but come with different chips on them
 
RAM is always the cheapest way to increase speed. its the absolute first thing I upgrade when I'm feelin sluggish.
 
^actually, that's not true. Buying ever more, ever faster ram isn't going to keep on increasing the speed of your rig.
The only way to do that is to upgrade the slowest point in the system. Otherwise you'll have a 'bottleneck' happening, and no amount of faster ram will help.
 
Additional RAM can help your system not have to shuttle things on and off the hard drive, letting it cruise along using its own memory. It won't speed up the CPU, but the transfer rate of RAM is MUCH faster than the hard drive's interface.
 
Adding a RAM would definitely do wonders to your system. You can expect a much faster processing and a increasing in the system performance.
 
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