Ram Upgrade 2 X 1gb Or 1 X 2gb?

[jackspratt]

I am about to upgrade my PC, including motherboard, CPU (Intel E5300) and RAM.

As it is not used for anything heavy duty, I believe 2Gb of RAM will be sufficient, even to run (eventually) Windows 7.

So should I go for 1 x 2Gb stick, or 2 x 1Gb sticks?

[Phil Conners]

1 x 2 GB so you can later use the other slot for an upgrade.

[thaimite]

1*2GB. Then you have a spare slot for when you find you want more RAM

[MarkBKK]

I am about to upgrade my PC, including motherboard, CPU (Intel E5300) and RAM.

As it is not used for anything heavy duty, I believe 2Gb of RAM will be sufficient, even to run (eventually) Windows 7.

So should I go for 1 x 2Gb stick, or 2 x 1Gb sticks?

Not much gain in day-to-day use, but every little helps. Look at www.devhardware.com/c/a/Memory/Dual-Channel/

[regedit]

2x1GB probably cheaper.

And if one fails, you're still in business while you get a replacement.

[Gary A]

I put one 2gb stick in mine. I can add another after I get the Windows 7 release version.

[jackspratt]

Thanks for all your thoughts, folks.

[Tywais]

If your mainboard supports dual channel memory (slots) then it is to your advantage in terms of performance to use 2 x 1GB memory modules.

One example of performance testing > Dual Channel

[thaimite]

If your mainboard supports dual channel memory (slots) then it is to your advantage in terms of performance to use 2 x 1GB memory modules.

One example of performance testing > Dual Channel

But if performance is your goal, then you should be using all the RAM you can!

[Beggar]

But if performance is your goal, then you should be using all the RAM you can!

Not so easy. If he has a 32 bit OS then 4 GB is more than enough. The OS will just see around 3.2 GB even if you have 12 GB. And then how much memory is really used. He does not want to use his PC for heavy duty as he writes. So no need to buy endless GB and use only a small fraction of it. There will be no performance improvement but just a waste of money. He should check the memory usage of his system now - best with switched off swap file to get an idea what makes sense - of course only if there is now so much memory available that the system will not crash.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Beggar

[Supernova]

Putting aside 'performance' issues like dual-channel mode, if the OP intends to run Windows 7 as mentioned at the start of this thread, 2GB will be enough for 'normal' usage. Personally, I'd put in 4GB RAM (minimum), then install Windows 7 x64. You can't go wrong there... It's not a matter of heavy-duty usage or not. Since this is a 64-bit system, it only makes sense to reap the benefits 64-bit computing. Doing so will require at least 4GB RAM and a 64-bit operating system.

[Crushdepth]

I upgraded my RAM from 2 gig to 4 gig last week. Weird thing I noticed - with 2 gig installed Vista (64) would consume about 750MB at idle. With 4 gig installed it consumes 1.2 gig at idle.

The more RAM you put in, the more inefficient it gets ???

[Beggar]

I upgraded my RAM from 2 gig to 4 gig last week. Weird thing I noticed - with 2 gig installed Vista (64) would consume about 750MB at idle. With 4 gig installed it consumes 1.2 gig at idle.

The more RAM you put in, the more inefficient it gets ???

Why do you complain? You bought more RAM that it gets used or not??? ;-)

[Supernova]

I upgraded my RAM from 2 gig to 4 gig last week. Weird thing I noticed - with 2 gig installed Vista (64) would consume about 750MB at idle. With 4 gig installed it consumes 1.2 gig at idle.

The more RAM you put in, the more inefficient it gets ???

No.

The same thing happened to me when I upgraded RAM from 1GB to 2GB on an older machine. Windows Vista x86 would consume 420MB at idle; with 2GB RAM, this number rose to 700MB. This doesn't mean it's inefficient, in fact, it's working the way it should -- as strange as it may seem.