Will going up to 2 Gigs of RAM improve my Win XP Pro?

[M. B.]

I am currently running Windows XP Pro SP2 with all of the latest patches &
updates. My hardware is ASUS P4C800 Deluxe MB running P4 3.2Mhz Prescott
and 1 Gig (2x512MB) of Crucial PC3200 DDR 400 (Dual Mode) RAM. My Graphics
card is an nVidia 6800 GT OC with 256 megs of RAM and I am running it in
1600x1200 mode on my LCD monitor. My PC is *not* overclocked in any way.

As I mostly use my computer for Stock Trading or Gaming, I often nowadays
have anywhere from 8 to 12 Windows open at the same time. At least 3 of
them are running Java applications with real-time market data streaming thru
them.

I am wondering if my machine's performance will improve at all if I upgrade
to 2 Gigs of RAM? I would buy 2x1MB of the same Crucial memory type (model
number : CT2KIT12864Z40B) and remove the already installed modules.

Although I am regularly scanning for viruses & spyware, running disk
defragger and everything else I can think of, my system seems to "slow down"
the more Windows I have open. In addition, I am hearing from folks that
newer games like Call of Duty 2, FEAR, Quake 4 are behaving better with 2
Gigs of RAM rather then just one.

Would love to hear fom the experts...

 

[Plato]

I am wondering if my machine's performance will improve at all if I upgrade
to 2 Gigs of RAM? I would buy 2x1MB of the same Crucial memory type (model
number : CT2KIT12864Z40B) and remove the already installed modules.

OK. I read what you do. And I can honestly say that it's a crapshoot. I
have many customers who do the same as you and often more memory wont
help. It seems to be related to the hi-tech sites you use, that
want/demand/ downloading all kinds of data continueally once you logon.

 

[David Candy]

Windows programs are frugal with memory. Programs are often using less than a meg of memory (windows continuously tunes running programs).

Windows is always taking 4k of memory from programs. If the program complains it gives it back, if not it keeps it.

1 gig is a waste of resources and 2 gig is probably 200 times the waste of 1 gig (law of dimishing returns)

 

[MAP]

I am currently running Windows XP Pro SP2 with all of the latest
patches & updates. My hardware is ASUS P4C800 Deluxe MB running P4
3.2Mhz Prescott and 1 Gig (2x512MB) of Crucial PC3200 DDR 400 (Dual
Mode) RAM. My Graphics card is an nVidia 6800 GT OC with 256 megs
of RAM and I am running it in 1600x1200 mode on my LCD monitor. My
PC is *not* overclocked in any way.

As I mostly use my computer for Stock Trading or Gaming, I often
nowadays have anywhere from 8 to 12 Windows open at the same time.
At least 3 of them are running Java applications with real-time
market data streaming thru them.

I am wondering if my machine's performance will improve at all if I
upgrade to 2 Gigs of RAM? I would buy 2x1MB of the same Crucial
memory type (model number : CT2KIT12864Z40B) and remove the already
installed modules.

Although I am regularly scanning for viruses & spyware, running disk
defragger and everything else I can think of, my system seems to
"slow down" the more Windows I have open. In addition, I am hearing
from folks that newer games like Call of Duty 2, FEAR, Quake 4 are
behaving better with 2 Gigs of RAM rather then just one.

Would love to hear fom the experts...

Our setup is close to each other's except that I have 1.5 gigs of ram,no
matter what I'm doing I never have less that 900mb of ram free 2 gigs would
be a waste of money.

 

[Leythos]

Our setup is close to each other's except that I have 1.5 gigs of ram,no
matter what I'm doing I never have less that 900mb of ram free 2 gigs would
be a waste of money.

When I master DVD's from multiple sources, when I run SQL server or
Exchange to test, when I load visual studio, I go over 1GB, but I don't
hit 2GB enough to be worth the cost to upgrade my laptop from 1.5 to
2.0.

As an example, normal use, a Usenet Reader, MS Office 2003 Word +
Outlook 2003 open, and Symantec 10 Corp running, I hit about 320MB of
RAM in use.

 

[John Wilson]

Man I want your system! You already have more than enough to handle
adequately and easily any game on the market.

I have a mere 1gig of memory in my comp and my graphics card is not nearly
as good as yours. I upgraded my memory from 500mb because I do alot of music
editing in the old Cool Edit Pro. I noticed the music files loaded and saved
alot faster after I upgraded the memory. The most intensive game I use is
Serious Sam. I noticed no difference in that game in regards to the memory
upgrade.

You know, alot of the things you say you are doing simultaneously are
extremely demanding of your CPU more so than your memory, don't you?

For example, I don't know what virus scanner you use, but my SpyHunter takes
up almost 90% of my CPU when I scan.

Here is how you can tell what tasks are eating up your cpu, which will slow
down your performance more than your memory. Go into Ctrl Alt Delete and
click on the Performance tab. That will show your cpu usage. It will also
show how much available memory you have left. Click on the Processes tab to
see how much memory a particular application is consuming. It is is
beneficial to do this when you are performing various tasks. For example, I
had no idea SpyHunter consumed so much of my resources.

 

[John Wilson]

Correction. SpyHunter is for spyware, not viruses.

 

[M. B.]

Thanks for everyone's replies. Here is some furthe info about my Task
Manager stats on no load and full load:

NO LOAD (after starting up the PC)
=========================
Handles: 10595
Threads: 388
Processes: 38

Commit Charge (K)
Total: 325492
Limit: 2520988
Peak: 973068

Physical Memory (K)
Total: 1047268
Available: 702772
System Cache: 461476

Kernel Memory (K)
Total: 110524
Paged: 64744
Nonpaged: 45780

FULL LOAD (with most Windows/Programs running)
=========================
Handles: 16612
Threads: 620
Processes: 44

Commit Charge (K)
Total: 729320
Limit: 2520988
Peak: 763316

Physical Memory (K)
Total: 1047268
Available: 175272
System Cache: 332420

Kernel Memory (K)
Total: 105348
Paged: 62052
Nonpaged: 443296

*********************************************************************

So, looking at these numbers, should I still think about going from 1 Gig to
2 Gigs of RAM?

THANKS AGAIN everyone!

 

[John Wilson]

So, looking at these numbers, should I still think about going from 1 Gig to
2 Gigs of RAM?>>


No. Your physical memory left available is just fine.

 

[frodo]

So, looking at these numbers, should I still think about going from 1 Gig to
2 Gigs of RAM?>>

No. Your physical memory left available is just fine.

Agreed. The only real reason for more ram would be if you are swapping to
the page file a lot, and you are not. The only other use for the extra ram
would be as disk-cache space.

Are you running the disks in RAID 0? There's a performance boost
available there; your MB supports it on ICH5R, and the add-in raid
controller too (Promise or VIA I think). ICH5R is the better of the
choices. To realize the boost you'll need to put the system on the RAID
array, not just your data - ie, a rebuild. IMHO going to RAID 0 is the
single cheapest performace boost you can make. Some people are "scared"
by it - "it's too risky". I disagree.

You didn't say how fast your ram is. 2T or 3T? Fast (and expensive!)
2-2-2-4 ram can make a bit of a difference, but for the most part
applications are not actually limited by ram bandwidth (but some games
are). But your benchmark numbers will go up and you'll have bragging
rights!

My guess is you may be "handicapped" by that Prescott CPU. Its very deep
pipeline can be a performance killer on "typical" apps; it'll blaze thru
numerically intensive work tho (encoding etc). If you're comparing your
system to a gamming friend's AMD setup, then this may be the cause of your
dissatisfaction. AMDs are a lot faster on the more typical stuff,
including games, but they're not as good number crunchers. And your
Hyperthreading does make for a slightly "snappier" user experience.

All in all, you're system is really very good, hang in there for another
year or two and get the most you can from it. By then there will be all
sorts of new things to drool over!

 

[frodo]

One more thing: you said something like "lately my system seesm to be
slowing down". You have checked all your startups and services, and done
virus and spy scanning, of course. But you DIDN'T take some bad advice
and turn off the XP Prefetching feature, did you? You DO allow the system
to do the periodic "Boot+Application_Launch Optimization Defrag", right?
Turning that off can cause the system to slow. Or not giving it a chance
to run: it needs the system to go idle for a while before it will kick in.
If you are the type that turns on the pc, works for a while and then
shuts down, it won't get a chance to run.

If you use a custom defragger like PerfectDisk, it too can/will turn off
that special built-in XP background defrag, so you have to run it (PD)
fairly frequently (every week or so) to get back that "optimization
defrag" effect. All in all PD does a better job of it, but you have to
run it to see the effect!

Good Luck.