I have 4 gigs of ram. would adding 512 MB add ANY performance value?

[rajohns08]

I salvaged the 2x2 256 MB from my parents old computer. is it even worth trying them in my machine?

 

[hunter315]

I havent seen 256MB sticks in a while, they are quite likely much slower or totally incompatible with your system(probably DDR1), if you already have 4GB adding another 512MB isnt going to make a big difference and could potential hurt performance based on the performance of the 256MB sticks since it will set everything to the fastest shared settings.

 

[kimyeang88]

256 MB mostly is DDR1 and DDR2 400 MHz. Your 4GB ram is probably 800 MHZ if it is DDR2 or DDR3 1333 MHZ. IF you have DDR3, it won't match the slot of your old RAM 256 MB. However if you have DDR2 4 GB and you put that 256 MB in, it will decrease your RAM performance to 400 MHz.

 

[joshyboy82]

If you mix the timing with what is currently installed your computer probably won't even boot, or it will constantly crash. If it even fits.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

i agree, probably not even the right type of ram, most likely it is SDR or DDR1. Either way it will add no noticeable boost over 4gb.

 

[joshyboy82]

Particularly if you aren't running 64bit windows. You might not even be using all the memory you have now.

 

[blackhawk1928]

What OS are you running? Particularly 32bit or 64bit. In addition, it depends on what you do. And as other people said, 512mb is really nothing, not to mention the ones you find will likley be very old and slow.

 

[rajohns08]

64 bit windows 7. Sounds like it's definitely not worth it to put it in so i'm not even gonna worry about it. thanks for advice