How much RAM does a computor need when using VISTA?

Question

I have a Dell Dimension E520 with 1GB of RAM.

I was told to go with 2GBs and someone at Yahoo! Answers swore by 2GBS citing really poor performance with anything less than 2GB.

I'm tempted to get another Gigabyte and up the RAM to 2GBs. However, I just read a similar question to mine Yahoo! Answers in which a guy says 4GBs.

I'm really tore over this and have no idea what to do. Do I upgrade to 2GBs or 4GBs?

It just doesn't seem like 1GB does the trick for VISTA and I'm getting sick and tried of having to close out a lot of browser windows and stuff after I've been online for a few hours JUST to open something else up! I'm also getting tired of having to close everything JUST to access my Outlook!

Answer 1

Vista is really a resource hog. 2Gb will be fine unless you have tons of startups such that even before you start doing anything you have less than 1Gb available memory. Or when you have a turbocache videocard that grabs a big chunk of RAM when its sees 2Gb of system RAM.

Answer 2

minimum is really 1gb.. it's like xp is really 512mb for me, but 1gb i run with..

depends on what you run, even things like ur desktop , if u want the very nice looking one or the just classic look.

i have 3gb on my new xp pc, but i'm switching to vista in a while, the disc is there.. just not installed it yet as i'm holding out a bit, so any problems are fixed.

i would say 2 or 3 gb, memory isn't that expensive..

perhaps look at crucial.com , to see what type u need.. as dell might be charging more than other places.

Answer 3

2Gb is good enough unless you plan on gaming, graphic design, or Autocad on it. Vista can run with 1 GB if and only if you run few processes when starting up and have a very good video card with GDDR3 RAM.I've tested Vista with 512Mb, 1Gb, 1.5Gb, 2Gb, and 4Gb of Ram and i think 2Gb is essential.