Upgrade RAM on the new computer?

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I found a good deal on a windows 7 setup at staples, and brought it home. It isn't top of the line, but I don't really game anymore, so it doesn't really matter. It's got 4gb of RAM, and for $100something I can upgrade to 16gb. Processor is a g2030. I play warzone2100, and watch movies. It does the things that I want it to. I am more looking for what advantages the upgrade would really do for me.
 
I would rather take 4gb of ram and an SSD than 16gb of ram and a regular hard drive. Either upgrade would be 100 bucks or so.
 
Originally Posted By: bepperb
I would rather take 4gb of ram and an SSD than 16gb of ram and a regular hard drive. Either upgrade would be 100 bucks or so.



This. SSD will be a much bigger upgrade for what you do than more RAM.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick R
Originally Posted By: bepperb
I would rather take 4gb of ram and an SSD than 16gb of ram and a regular hard drive. Either upgrade would be 100 bucks or so.



This. SSD will be a much bigger upgrade for what you do than more RAM.


I agree, after so much ram, your hdd is the slowest part of your machine
 
More than 8gb isn't worth it unless you use the extra for ramdisk.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-9.html
SSD is worth it for better overall system improvement or for gaming look at graphic card upgrade.
If the computer has onboard graphics that uses the ram for its memory, then more memory would also allow it to use more ram for graphics.
 
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that article is from 2010.. its abit dated.

nowadays I'd say the sweet spot on ram is 8gb.

but for the OP's useage 4gb is likely sufficient.

SSD would be a much more noticeable upgrade.
 
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Originally Posted By: Donald
I would go wit 8 GB and an SSD.


+1; Extra RAM is never "wasted" by any modern OS; It is used for disk buffering or caching. Once a majority of "clean pages" are in memory, there is no reason to reload from the HD, SSD or not.
 
Your processor only supports DDR3 up to 1333MHz, so don't spend extra for faster RAM speed.

I wouldn't install more than 8 GB. I think your biggest bang for the buck would be with a SSD. Crucial, Corsair, and Samsung are worth a look. There are other good ones too.
 
Originally Posted By: bepperb
I would rather take 4gb of ram and an SSD than 16gb of ram and a regular hard drive. Either upgrade would be 100 bucks or so.


+1
 
Originally Posted By: Shaman
I found a good deal on a windows 7 setup at staples, and brought it home. It isn't top of the line, but I don't really game anymore, so it doesn't really matter. It's got 4gb of RAM, and for $100something I can upgrade to 16gb. Processor is a g2030. I play warzone2100, and watch movies. It does the things that I want it to. I am more looking for what advantages the upgrade would really do for me.


We recently bought something similar; a Dell Inspiron 660s with G2030 processor at Best Buy for $299. Instinctively, my first move was going to Newegg.com to see what I could buy for RAM, but the more I use it, the more I realized that it really doesn't need more RAM. It's Windows 8(.1 now), and it runs quite fast. The only real lag is when it's disk-crunching to open Word or Excel, but even then, it's only a second or two and the program is open.

I agree with others; you'd get better bang for your buck with an SSD.
 
Yeah, go 8GB and forget the rest. That's still a bit of overkill (right now), but will be a nice medium now. Given the pricing history, RAM will probably be half the price if you wait a year or two.
 
The SSD will give the best performance boost but the upgrade is potentially more time consuming than a RAM upgrade. You will need to migrate the OS to the SSD.. If you're lucky, the migration programs will work without a hitch. If not, you will get weird errors later.

If your budget is $100, wait for a sale where they have 128G drive for $80. Use the remainder on RAM.

For the SSD, stick with Intel, Samsung or Toshiba. I had a Kingston and it sucked
 
4GB is plenty, 8GB is a nice upgrade, and 16GB is “Ill plan to take this out and install it in my next new computer in a few years”.

If the computer is performing the tasks you require of it currently then an investment in upgrading is likely not worth it. I really want an SSD for my new gaming laptop. Spending a few hundred bucks to upgrade a new computer that easily handles everything I throw at it just so I don’t have to wait a few more seconds is not really worth investing a large percentage of the computers total value in a single upgrade. I would rather wait until the computer is a year or two old and upgrade it then. It gives the component(s) I want a chance to come down in price and it gives me a chance to squeeze a few more years of relevancy out of the unit.
 
I built a new system in February. It's an AMD A8 with 4GB RAM. For the money, it's speedy. But, the hard drive I bought on eBay apparently had some bad sectors. The thing would randomly reboot itself. I put up with it for months, but decided it was time to try a different drive. I splurged and bought a budget SSD (SanDisk Ultra Plus 128GB). The Windows issues appear to be resolved and it really did speed up the machine noticeably. It improved my "Windows Experience" disk drive score from 5.9 to 7.1. This is a $110 SSD so it's not top of the line, but it is a well known brand.
 
I just upgraded my work laptop a week or so ago (Lenovo T420 w/i5 CPU) to 16GB because I do a bit of virtualization on it with VMWare. It made a rather significant difference even just with Chrome and the million tabs I keep open.
 
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