Is this memory upgrade worth it?

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Thinking about upgrading my single core Ubuntu-running base unit. For £30 I can increase the memory from 1.25gb to 2.0gb (that's its maximum, and it only has 2 slots) by dumping the .25 strip and buying another 1.0gb strip from Amazon.

Opinions sought - is it worth it for the improvement I would notice in running general progs, including watching/recording/editing video and playing around with audio, or should I save my money?
 

ACS

Legendary Member
There is a line of thought that suggests that you can never have enough RAM. As RAM get older and the amount in circulation decreases market forces cause the costs to rise.

IMO the 1gb chip is the only option.

I would say 'yes' because I get frustrated by devices which take and age to do anything.
 
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beanzontoast
satans budgie said:
There is a line of thought that suggests that you can never have enough RAM. As RAM get older and the amount in circulation decreases market forces cause the costs to rise.

IMO the 1gb chip is the only option.

I would say 'yes' because I get frustrated by devices which take and age to do anything.

This is kind of what I was veering towards. I hate consigning computers to the tip when they still have years of useful life in them given a bit of a boost. If I can speed it up a bit, I don't mind the expense.

Also thinking about adding a cheap pci graphics card to free up even more memory. What do people think?
 

gaz

Cycle Camera TV
Location
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£30 for a 1GB stick? your getting ripped off.
What kind of memory do you need? if you don't know post the model of your computer.
 
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beanzontoast
gaz said:
£30 for a 1GB stick? your getting ripped off.
What kind of memory do you need? if you don't know post the model of your computer.

It's this - seems to be a similar price wherever I've looked. This is a match for the 1gb stick already in. Guess it's older ram so, as has been said, more expensive to buy new. Going into a Fujistu Scaleo L.
 
I upped my last computer but found although it had more RAM it was not getting faster (but did crash a bit less) as the speed of the whole thing was not great.

I bought a second hand desktop for £180 (Dell 2 gig Ram dual core job) and it is just a joy to use. So I would say go for the dual core upgrade as you may be pushing the old unit too far.

The engines cannee take it Captain!
 
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beanzontoast
Over The Hill said:
I upped my last computer but found although it had more RAM it was not getting faster (but did crash a bit less) as the speed of the whole thing was not great.

I bought a second hand desktop for £180 (Dell 2 gig Ram dual core job) and it is just a joy to use. So I would say go for the dual core upgrade as you may be pushing the old unit too far.

The engines cannee take it Captain!

Ahh... I've been here before! This is how I got the Windows Xp dual core base that I use as my current main machine! Though I do get your point - when I bought my dual core base from new, it was £400+ whereas now that things have moved on you can get them secondhand a lot, lot cheaper because people want amazing graphics and quad core this and that etc. I still rate my dual core as doing everything (in Windows) I want it to do.

Out of interest, IYDMMA, where did you get your Dell from?
 
If you are running Xp, Vista or 7 then 2gb will make everything things 'less slow'. Even starting up. Worth a punt tbh, I know that my folks have kept a PC that they wanted to chuck out since I added ram and got rid of symantec AV.

And <quick web check> cor blimey guv'nor, memory of this (PC2700) type really is that expensive nowadays.

nb. editing and recording video would benefit more from a decent video card tbh, although more ram would help all the same.
 
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beanzontoast
2Loose said:
If you are running Xp, Vista or 7 then 2gb will make everything things 'less slow'. Even starting up. Worth a punt tbh, I know that my folks have kept a PC that they wanted to chuck out since I added ram and got rid of symantec AV.

And <quick web check> cor blimey guv'nor, memory of this (PC2700) type really is that expensive nowadays.

nb. editing and recording video would benefit more from a decent video card tbh, although more ram would help all the same.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to go for the memory and see if I can look into picking up a secondhand silent graphics card going cheap (passively cooled that it - this old base is noisy enough already without adding another fan!). Should give the old unit a decent extension to its life. It only has basic pci slots (not pci-e) and an agp so it shouldn't be a huge expense adding a graphics card.
 

rh100

Well-Known Member
2Loose said:
If you are running Xp, Vista or 7 then 2gb will make everything things 'less slow'. Even starting up. Worth a punt tbh, I know that my folks have kept a PC that they wanted to chuck out since I added ram and got rid of symantec AV.

And <quick web check> cor blimey guv'nor, memory of this (PC2700) type really is that expensive nowadays.

nb. editing and recording video would benefit more from a decent video card tbh, although more ram would help all the same.

+1

2GB seems to be ideal for XP - not sure about linux stuff.

It means less read/write to the swap file on the hard disk so quite a bit quicker. Although 1.25GB should be ok though, so depends on if the £30 is worth a go.

For some reason the DDR ram is dearer than the newer ddr2, suppose it's about supply/demand.
 
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