1 gig or 2

Okay I am gonna put together a new pc and was wondering about how much mem ? I have no plan to install the new Vista for pry the next 2 years and will remain with Xp pro (64 bit ) . I will switch to ddr2 bit was just wondering if 1 gig would be enough . Just to save a lil cash . Currently I have 1 gig kingston and for what I can tell it´s plenty .. With Xp


Thanks OCF
Love this forum

You should be fine with 1 Gig unless you are gaming and by gaming I mean newer games. Since you've said the 1 gig you have now is plenty, I'm assuming you aren't using any software that eats up a lot of ram either (Video/Picture/Audio/Cad Editing blah blah blah)

Hold out and save a few bucks before getting another Gig.

You should be fine with a gig, But if you plan for hardcore gaming or hosting a website or anything on the system then Id go for 2 gigs.

1 gig is fine more than likely. Get a 1x1GB stick to give yourself some growing room for the future.

Thanks for the quick replays

I do do some gaming (cs s , delta force ) but nothing 2 new .. I thought about going 1x1gig but was not sue , thought it would hurt performance "dual channel" . Or is it not that big off a deal.

Linux_Box said:

1 gig is fine more than likely. Get a 1x1GB stick to give yourself some growing room for the future.

Click to expand...

You definitly want 2 sticks for dual channel. If you might go 2x1gb in the future, just buy a 2gb kit now. Otherwise just get a 2x512mb kit.

Im in a similar situation myself i have 2x512 at the moment in my current rig but it's only a socket a "barton xp-m" setup and 1gb is enough.

When i get my new pc be it core 2 duo or "other" i wouldnt mind getting 2gb but i've found
it hard currently to push 1gb to the max so im not convinced i will need 2gb when i upgrade.

I would like to get a 1gb stick first and then add another 1gb stick to my setup later when money permits
but i was unsure of how it would affect my performance using just the 1gb stick instead of 2x1gb dual channel.

I suppose theres plenty of time to decide though im certainly in no rush to upgrade i've not got the cash

I would recommend just getting the 2 gigs, i think you'd be happy about it in the long run. I just got done playing Dark Messiah on the computer in my sig, and i think the 1 gig of ram is really holding me back.
Perhaps i should have held off on the 8800 and gotten another gig? oh well, i will soon anyway i guess, but my next upgrade will definitely be another gig.

Turns out my sig says i have 2 gigs, guess i edited it before the order got screwed up and only received one.

2gb is for the long run. I just updated from 1gb myself, and i must say that contrary to what other people have said, i have not really noticed the difference. Im still happy i did it though, especially with vista on the way because it can take up almost 600mb by itself. In comparison my computer is using about 415mb right now and thats with my phone connected, winamp playing, java, msn messenger, ultramon and firefox (with is the ram hog). Now of course 2gb performance will only be clear in games which will use that much, but i think for vista you want at least 2gb to be happy.

so in conclustion, if you are using XP get 1gb, vista get 2gb.

I went with 2x1048 memory over a year ago and I've noticed I'm able to run a lot of stuff at once without any perceptible lag. Photoshop loves 2gigs. So does Vista.

Correction to this.

Vista can use limited ram turing off a bit of the extra eye candy type features. Of course I wouldn't recommend it but still you can get into the 400meg range. Of course he won't be going to vista for a wee bit so thats fine.

I ran 1gig for ages (well before 1gig became the standard). Since I play more modern day games the 1gig became overun by current games and I went 2gigs. With my current system I went 4Gig, due to Vista (750-800megs up and running) + big programs and can use an easy 2.6Gig easily (to bad im not running 64-bit yet due to issues, get my extra gig of ram back instead of the 3 im limited to currently).

For you though if you think you'll upgrade to 2Gig in the future (say 6 months) you might consider getting it now and just be done with it, cheaper and easier (same stick types) so there will be no compatibility issues between the ram. If you plan on upgrading within the year, get a 1Gig stick. As well if there is no issues with the board going 2x512meg sticks would be just fine as well just make sure theres 4 ram slots and people aren't having problems. If any longer then a year just going the 2x512meg sticks is what I'd say.

If you can afford it, get the 2GB now. I upgraded to 2GB on XP and am very happy with the performance increase.

Okay I think I decided

Thanks again 4 all the info OCF rocks ,
Okay because of cost in the long run I think 2 gig would be the best bet , tryin to get rid of 2x512 later on is an option but don´t think it´s worth the head ache . Plus I did some shoppin and think these would work .

http://www.tankguys.biz/2x1gb-dark-44412-800mhz-p-1710.html
and the price is not bad.

I live currently in Germany and the price for Ram is crazy

http://www.alternate.de/html/productDetails.html?artno=IBIEVK

That link shows A-data for 279 € that makes $362.00 without shipping.

I´ll just have Mom´s ship it..

You don't need to get rid of the 2x512Meg sticks later if you have 4 slots you can use another 2x512Meg set to stick in the other 2.

Yah 4 sticks is only a no no if your a serious benchmarker. If you are running AM2 then 4 sticks is actually a benefit IIRC due to the interleaving process they utilized.

Huh

I am switching to Amd x2 "thinkin of 5200+ because of cache" 4 banks of ram is better than just 2 . Guess it´s not like intel . So I would be better with 4 sticks , that makes me think ..

Neur0mancer said:

Yah 4 sticks is only a no no if your a serious benchmarker. If you are running AM2 then 4 sticks is actually a benefit IIRC due to the interleaving process they utilized.

Click to expand...

I've bearly noticed a difference between 2 slots and 4 slots with Intel. Mind you it was with my 2.4C processor I didn't notice any difference. Mind you I haven't tried running 2 sticks on my system but still it preforms very nicely.

Vista loves 2gigs because it caches almost all of the avilable memory and this is one reason it can seem just as fast as XP or even faster inspite of some bloat.