Difference between 512 and 1 GB of RAM

[Scottie]

would I notice a big difference going from 512 MB to 1 GB of Ram I'm using an Athlon XP3200 Barton ?

Also if I did upgraded my Ram I will be passing my ram down to my daughters computer.

Would I notice a Differennce going from 256 MB to 768 MB on my daughter Sempron 2800 ?

Why I ask is because I've used to older computers before Athlon 1.1 Ghz and Celeron 900 and I ran them with only 256 MB all the time and I tried 512 MB in each of them and I couldn't tell the difference so I thought you guy's would know better.

Thanks for all your help guys !

[mattyboy]

ABSOLUTELY!!! That increase is where you would notice the most. It will be a plesant surprise when you updgrade. Go for it!!

[BJ_M]

for most things you would not really notice anything different at all -- depends what your doing , but for avg. XP stuff - 512 is plenty ...

i said AVERAGE , like web browsing , word docs and light picture edit stuff --

even encoders dont take that much memory normally ..

[mattyboy]

if you want to play a game that was made in the last 2 years that has really good graphics, get 1 gb.
1 GB is the new standard for the amount of ram you should have IMO.

[Soopafresh]

HUGE DIFFERENCE going from 256MB to 768MB

NOT AS BIG A DIFFERENCE going from 512 to 1GB (but it depends on the apps you use - After Effects, Avid, Vegas, etc all benefit from LOTS and LOTS of RAM - Graphics Intensive Games as Well)

[redwudz]

What Soopafresh said. XP runs much better with 512MB. Going to 1G will help more with multitasking. You should see some improvement with encoding and video tasks, but not near as much as going from 256MB to 512MB.

[fmctm1sw]

I went from 256 to 512 recently and saw no change in encoding speed. I didn't bother to check things like opening an bunch of wavs in goldwave though. I have to assume it did wonders for that...

[steve2713]

I agree, unless you are a power freak going from 512 to 1gb isn't going to make much, if any, difference 99% of the time. 256mb is plenty for your average computer user, frankly.

But doing the sort of things most of the users on Videohelp do with their computers, 512 can be a nice improvement over 256 at times.

[mattyboy]

I went from 256 to 512 recently and saw no change in encoding speed. I didn't bother to check things like opening an bunch of wavs in goldwave though. I have to assume it did wonders for that...

HE never said he was going to encode anything at all.

[mattyboy]

I agree, unless you are a power freak going from 512 to 1gb isn't going to make much, if any, difference 99% of the time. 256mb is plenty for your average computer user, frankly.

But doing the sort of things most of the users on Videohelp do with their computers, 512 can be a nice improvement over 256 at times.

Maybe you should buy 1GB of ram before you can honestly say what changes it will make.
I actually have 1.5 GB and i took out 1/2GB because the amount of modules it was on took up all the RAM slots on my mobo, which diabled PAT, and it didnt give much of any increase in performance.
It just seems that everyone here who has 512MB or less says theres no difference in going up 1GB. How could you know for sure unless you tried it?
The bottom line is it will depend on what you are doing with your PC most of the time.

[bugster]

The bottom line is it will depend on what you are doing with your PC most of the time.

That about sums it up

[Scottie]

I use my computer mainly for playing games, I backup DVDs and I use speech reconiction software surfing the net e-mail.

[bugster]

In that case you might see some improvement with some games. Don't know about speech reco. Surfing and e-mail won't improve.

[steve2713]

Maybe you should buy 1GB of ram before you can honestly say what changes it will make.

Nice try , but I have more than one computer, other equipment for comparison, I have run 1GB of PC3200 in dual channel before for comparison in my main computer. I do very little gaming, although I did run some of those gaming tests, there was SOME difference, but it wasn't that significant and it made nearly no difference at all for my uses (DVD Shrink, burning discs, Audio compression, etc.). I do do Photoshop type image editing with large images at times, the extra RAM can help at times with that, but you usually need to be working on VERY large images or several images at once to really see much benefit from the extra RAM.

I may upgrade to 1gb at some point when a good deal comes along, but like I said before unless you are more of a 'power' user I'd say that past 512mb is your point of diminishing returns, so to speak. There are going to be quite a few 'power' users on videohelp though, considering that one of the main reasons for this site is for video editing and video compression, two uses that could certainly benefit from more RAM.

[mattyboy]

Again, by saying "gaming" thats such a vague term. Does that mean "farcry" and "doom3" or "everquest" and "diablo". By no means am I attacking or really critisizing you, I just play all the latest games (HL2) and the preformance jump from 512 to 1GB (especially in RAM sponge games like farcry) was unbelievable. It makes or breaks the game if you want to have any decent settings turned up at all.

[Scottie]

When I say Gaming I mean All games Doom 3, Farcry, Half Life 2, as well as older ones but I play almost all new games on my computer.

[steve2713]

Sorry Scotty I didn't see your second post that mentioned you are using it primarily for gaming. If you are going to be playing the newest stuff like Doom 3 then I agree completely with mattyboy that you will benefit from the extra RAM. These latest games want more more more of all resources they can get, 4gb of RAM would probably prove useful with Doom 3 (and a ridiculously expensive video card):P

Mattyboy I do agree with you since he will be playing the latest games, again he fits into what I'd call a 'power' user, the average person that doesn't have Doom 3 isn't going to need a gig of RAM though.

[Scottie]

Thanks for all your replys, I heard abunch of storys about what is better so I thought maybe we could clear it up abit.