how much faster will my computer run if i increase the RAM?

Question

i have a fairly new HP pavillion desktop with a 3.06ghz celeron, 128mb nvidia video card, 160gb hdd, and 768mb ram. how much faster will it be if i max out the system to 2gb of ram? will there be a noticable difference when i play games? i have pretty much the best video card i can get for a PCI slot, and i still have to play my racing games in low detail at 800x600 resolution.
will the ram upgrade allow me to use higher detail and screen res?

im pretty good with computers. i know i have a PCI loaded with a nVidia GefForce 4 MX440 128mb video card, which is the fastest gpu i can get, (i might consider a 256mb card though). PCI-x comes on the newer gaming boards. my comp is more for the average consumer who surfs the net and plays solitaire, so i dont even have an AGP slot.

im trying to make the most out of what i have to work with.

i cant afford the ferrari, so im just gonna put a turbo on my toyota.

(btw, i bought 2gigs of ram for $110, go ebay)

Answer 1

RAM might help a little, but it's mainly good for running multiple processes at the same time. The biggest problem I see is that you have a celeron, which is not a very powerful processor regardless of the fact that it's 3.06.

Answer 2

Most of your problem is the celeron. They are the lower class of intel processor.

Adding ram might give you some performance increase, but it probably won't be that noticeable.

For gaming - you probably want to upgrade the video card - you probably don't have a PCI slot card - those are the little ones that network/sound/modem cards plug into. You most likely have a PCI-E (pci express) video card slot (unless you got jacked when you bought the computer). Take your machine to compusa or someplace and see if they sell something better - get a 256 or even a 512 meg video card and you will notice a considerable increase in video performance - and how high you can set the settings.

Make sure to do some research into how to keep windows cleaned up and running right - garbage running in the background, plus viruses, malware/spyware, etc. will take up resources. Also look closely at the video settings in your games (some things can't be adjusted within the game - look online for people explaining how to go into files that the game uses and modify stuff to get it to run smoother).

Answer 3

The Celeron is a major gaming bottleneck. And games perform better with more RAM than you have.

"i have pretty much the best video card i can get for a PCI slot". I don't think it's a PCI card, AGP or PCI/X maybe?

TIP: If you want a fast gaming machine, replace what you have. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear".

Answer 4

768 mb of ram is a normal amount for windows xp. For vista, 1 gb is good. 2 gb is better.

Going from 768 mb of ram to 2 gb's isn't going to gain you much of performace increase as for as Windows goes. If you gaming, your going to see a little more of an increase, but really game resolution depends on the graphics card and the ram on it. The increased resolution will tax your gpu on the graphics card, and the increase pixels with a higher resolution will use it's ram more. If your going to spend 200 dollars on ram, I'd recommend a newer graphics card using the pci-express slot or the agp slot. I have never seen a motherboard with out one of these.

Answer 5

It depends on whether the games you are running require more RAM then you have. If so, what is happening is that the games are using some of the hard drive as virtual RAM which means access time will be slower then if you just had enough RAM to begin with.

Answer 6

particular, you may desire to be conscious a velocity strengthen whilst including reminiscence on your computing gadget. in case you want to comprehend the clarification in the back of this, examine on: You notebook has distinctive 'storage' mechanisms which surely keep or queue up training to your processor. some are risky (like RAM, and processor Cache), which sparkling whilst the notebook is switched off and a few are everlasting (Optical Drives, complicated Drives, USB Pen's and so on), which persist long after your notebook is switched off. all of them have various tiers of get right of entry to velocity and value. Processor Cache is the quickest, yet expenditures the main. RAM is 2d quickest, then complicated stress, USB and so on. short-term storage is used once you open an application (like Paint, or the Calculator), that's loaded in on your 1GB of RAM including something your working gadget (abode windows or Linux). although whilst it runs out of room, it starts to utilise your complicated stress (website record) as storage, that's quite slower than getting access to something in RAM. with the objective to sidestep the will to your notebook to get right of entry to training on the plenty slower complicated stress, you may desire to strengthen your RAM. of direction that's not the only factor in controlling the fee of your gadget, even though it easily helps! Updating the motherboard and processor can help, and now-a-days you may strengthen the kind of processors accessible on your gadget (twin center, Quad center and so on) in spite of the shown fact that those issues value somewhat greater suitable than a stick of RAM!

Answer 7

Not really. Ram just a helping hand for processor to data later, now, store or seek only. something like what u want now is what u get kind of helping.
Overclocking is the real speed boast or change the chip to a P4 - 3.2 - 3.4 mhz 800 mhz 2mb type.

Answer 8

hi,

increase ram will only make a bigger room for processing, it won't affecting much to the overall speed.
how to make your computer speedy?
a. upgrade your processor to most recent procs. like dual-core, quad-core, etc
b. upgrade your video card with min. vgaram 512mb
c. increase your ram, 1Gb at least, 2Gb fair, 4Gb good.

hwh,
http://dwikristianto.homeunix.org

Answer 9

YEP u will see noticible change... esspesially in games...