DDR2-800 RAM crucial 2g dual channel in 2-2 G sets OCZ Platinum!!! But then I'm a 3D Graphics artist... 
How much RAM do you currently have in your main computer?
128MB or less (really?)
192MB
256MB
384MB
512MB
768MB
1GB
2GB or more
I don't know
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General discussion
How much RAM do you currently have in your main computer?
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61 - 90 of 116 Posts
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In April I bought a new HP m7480n which comes with 2GB.
I had the dealer (the large blue/yellow retailer) upgrading the machine with an additional 2 GB right away.
Works fine so far - just that according to both, the dealer and HP, this machine cannot handle the full 4 GB. Well, the dealer didn't know until I got the machine and turned it on the first time just to notice that WXP-Pro was only reporting 3.5GB (and its not the shared memory being used by the GeForce 7300LE - that one only has 256MB max).
But even with .5BG missing this is still better than 1GB or 2GB. It runs smooth and doesn't have to swap all the time.
So my .02$: since RAM doesn't cost a fortune any more - go and upgrade, get as much RAM as possible unless you're using your computer just to replace a typewriter
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I had to purchase a new system a month ago, when the monitor, fritzed out on us. I first looked into purchasing just a monitor, but the family argued that if I purchased this monitor and the hard drive rolled over a month later the new monitor was useless. They had a point, and that was all, for the reason my old system was a HP Pavilion package system that has been a lemon from the beginning.
A month after purchasing the HP I sent it back to HP for a hard drive lock up. When I received a month later after sending it to HP, there was a constant D:\\drive fault 32bit processor, identified everytime it was rebooted or started in the morning after being shutdown overnight. HP did not find anything wrong.
It had 256K RAM, and I attempted to install another 256K of RAM in the hopes of helping it speed up its very deliberately slow functions. I had the same results, when I started the PC after installation. The new memory did not register when I checked the BIOS.
All attempts to get it to function failed. I even removed it and swapped it with the original memory and it functioned properly, and all systems ran normally.
I installed the original memory in the additional memory port, and it functioned like no problem ever existed.
After dealing with a malfunctioning Pavilion for three years, and no help from HP, when the monitor quit, it was painful to look for another system. I found at Best Buy an eMachine T6528 AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor 2.2GHZ/512KBL2 Cache 2000 MHZ sytem Bus 160GB Hard Drive, and 512 MB DDR SDRAM Memory.
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Currently I have 224 MB RAM,AMD Athlon XP 2000 Mhz (1.95 Ghz)and Windows 98 Second Edition. But this configuration really sucks!
It causes fatal errors, crashes...
Thus, soon I'll be moving to 512 MB RAM and WINDOWS XP.
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It's not really required, as 0.5GB is good there, but if you tend to have lots of windows open at the same time or using more resource intensitve apps, you'll appreciate the extra 0.5GB
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WinXp will help improve your computer experience a lot! Your system will crash nowhere near as often.
But: Put 1 GB of RAM in if your motherboard can take it. Running WinXP on 512MB means you and it will be fighting over the available RAM. This means things will run slow. This, however, might seem like a speedup to you from Win98 and 256MB (your video card must be using some of your 256MB, which is why you only see 224MB).
Anyway, WinXP is a much better OS. You WILL like it.
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Hi, I upgraded to 1gb for my laptop and my desktop. Why bother with just 512mb if you can go up more I would certainly go for it.
You can find pretty good buys online as well. It doesn't cost all that much nowadays to go for the 1gb.
You will also find that using WinXP will improve your computers performance. (Win98 isn't supported any longer by Microsoft, so good time to upgrade).
Also if you think you are getting lags from your computer more than likely its the ISP/Server you are using or the server that you are visiting/viewing on.
However the Memory upgrade is a good choice.
Enjoy your Saturday gaming.
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The question is relative, but I've found that with XP an amount of 512 mb works very well for a typical home computer.
I do a little video and audio editing, (no gaming), and thats about as stressful as it gets for most typical users.
So the answer is a minimum of 512, or up to 2 gb, depending on your needs. I would definitely consider anything over 2 gb as window dressing.
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That is definitely dependent on what you do with it. I have a Dual Core and am running apps like Carrara 5, Bryce 5.5, Vue 5 Infinite, Poser 6, Hexagon 2 and Photoshop CS2. My system chokes at 2 G. Maybe its OK for ''a little editing'' of anything, but not when you run the wheels off of it like I do. I get out of memory errors all the time. So your judgement about other people's needs as being ''window dressing'' is not only wrong, its ill informed.
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You may not realize it, but your use is far from the typical, that I spoke of. Sounds like a contest to see how many apps. can run at the same time. I understand that graphics apps. and such can require a minimum of 2 gb of ram, but that's certainly not typical.
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I have 1.5 gig or DDR3200,,,,will put more (up to 3gig) when i get some spare change.
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I have a custom PC purchased in 2000 with 512 RDRAM. As it is terribly expensive now I am waiting until Vista is released.
I will then design another custom PC and will use 2Gb of Dual Channel memory with four sockets with only two used (1Gb each) for future use.
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i have a G3 ibook and i increased it's built in 128 ram by 512 to 640 with good results, but i bought my memory chip from a reputable certified apple dealer.
i bought my new macbook with factory installed 1 GB ram and i think i should have gone higher because the new programms are no longer properly designed: even if i turn off a programm that i no longer use, that programm still occupies part of my ram, and the used ram increases daily.
i discovered that, after i updated my g3 to mac os x tiger and the updates; my g3 became slower and slower because my 640 ram was used up if i did not shut the computer down for 2 to 3 days. closing your programs after you use them is no longer good enough, you have to reboot to clear the ram.
i check my macbook activity monitor about every 2 day now and most of the time with no extra programs running at that time the check reveals 680 - 740 mb or 68 - 74 % of the ram is being used. after reboot the system uses 438 mb of ram or 44 %.
here an unprofessional experiment for this commentary:
550 ram where in use when i clicked on yahoo messenger. before i was signed in the ram used increased to 593 gb or + 43 gb.
i could not get on air and shut the program down completely. now the ram used showed 586 gb or - 7gb.
then i clicked on yahoo again and checked my mail the ram increased to 609 gb or + 23gb. after checking the mail and closing the program completely the used ram decreased to 595 gb or - 14.
the end result is my used ram increased after the program is shut down twice from 550 gb to 595 gb or a gain of 45 gb
+43 - 7 = 36 + 23 = 59 - 14 = 45
the computer does the same thing with all other programs , be they apple native or other software.
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At first I was only going to get 2GB or RAM for my system but since I'm using an AMD Athlon 64 4800 X2 that I would get the extra memory so that if and when I decide to upgrade to Vista. Even though XP only recognizes 3GB on my current systen I have noticed better performance when I have several applications open at the same time. The same can be said for gaming, even the most recent games such as F.E.A.R. and Doom III run much better.
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When I bought my most recent Windows XP desktop, I saved money by getting it with 256MB RAM, knowing I could buy extra cheaper from non-OEM sources. The PC ran OK, but I could tell by the task monitor that I used almost all of it in certain tasks like video crunching.
In time I kicked it up to 768MB. It boosted performance speed a bit, and no matter what I did, I always had lots of available memory -- and between office suites, graphic editing and animation, I do a lot at the same time.
Recently I had a chance to try 2GB of RAM. No difference in speed. No difference in performance.
I think there's a point where RAM's benefits become more psychological than real. Before anyone wastes their money, they may want to take a moment to come back to reality.
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I had 128 (honest!) til last year, when i had two 256s installed - so now i have 640 (and a newer vid card) for gaming, and it runs GTA:VC and flight sims very well.
Yes, at 128 it had trouble running games, but video cards come with that much now, and take a mighty load off the cpu.
My first computer had (if i remember correctly) 64k RAM and 64 more in a "ramdisk" (virtual chip.) My first Mac still has 16MB ram - and it runs Adobe Illustrator, Quark and even Photoshop well enough, thank you. I kept my System 7 lean and mean, UNDER 4 MB, and it was enough. So I have a deep resentment at the Mega-Bloat since then; OSs that need a hundred MB, apps and games that require hundreds of MB to run??
Sure, it's nice to wallow in excess (after all, this is America) but you have to admit, it's a bit excessive.
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i did not read the other posts first!!
these are my sstem specs (yes,its an apple very expensive)
2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5 (2 dual core G5s !)
16GB 533 DDR2 8x2GB
2x500GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
QUADRO FX 4500 512MB SDRAM (nvidia)
AirPort Extreme + Bluetooth built-in
16x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R DL/DVD
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Jesus, dude, what do you do? Either you're working in a business that requires some really intense processing power, or you have money to burn.
I have a G4 that I'm getting ready to sell, and the HARD DRIVE in that computer is ony 10 gb. I kneel at the alter and pray to the Power Lords that be...
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Your experience has simply told you that 2 GB is probably the max RAM for you.
It certainly is not and was not for me. I run a very specific chess database of over 3.5 million games. This database is capable of finding all games within its database that share the same position of mine in a matter of seconds. This databse also can do searches by themes such as certain tactics, pawn structures or simply specific piece placements. It's very sophisticated and memory intensive. And MORE RAM is BETTER. Same with my ches playing software progam that I use for analyizing chess games. That program uses both cores in my Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processor as well as all RAM I want to throw at it - I can set the RAM amount is uses.
For me 4 GB is the most I can use in my current motherboard, and I use it. For you, it sounds like 1 or 2 GB is your max.
EVERYONE should have at least 1 GB - WinXP is a memory hog that will use most of 512MB when allowed more RAM. When you have only 512MB, you and WinXP are fighting all the time for the use of the available RAM. And fighting always slows things down.
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i have 256 mb ram how much is needed to really needed to have fun and to work with?
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1 GB is really a minimum to have fair use of your computer.
2 GB is perferred to allow WinXP its free use of RAM and you the comfort to use what ever applications you use. This amount of RAM makes surfing the web while working in Word or using Outlook or an IM at the same time much more pleasant.
But for those who want to pince pennies, I let them. It's their life.
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I currently have 2 gigs, which is what is necessary to run most new videogames on the highest settings. I have a Sony FE590PA with an Intel Centrino duo @ 2Ghz, a Geforce Go 7400 @256 mb and a 120 gig hard drive. A gig of my memory (bought from memoryten) recently failed and I had the unpleasent experience of running ghost recon with only 1 gig; the experience was horibble, the game kept crashing and the AI got rock stupid (tanks couldn't turn without getting stuck and team members did not respond to commands given on the tactical map).
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Wow you seem to have a nice laptop there - 120GB and 256MB of GPU, plus 2GB of memory - my dream system! 
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For now, I only have 512MB. I'd like to get some more, but it's all right for now.
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I only have 512 MB (in my laptop and me and my roommates 2 desktops as well), but I have made sure to at least give them lots of virtual RAM, 2GB minimum up to 2560MB maximum, in the paging file area under System--Advanced--Performance Settings--Advanced...
This is a temporary solution until I buy another 512MB to 1GB for each system.
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I am a very poor person.
this computer is 7 yrs old.
pc was made in oct 1998 .
I brought the pc in nov 1998.
please send me money if you think I should have money
by paypal.com my email is jakoblin@gmail.com
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