Upgrade options

[a071250]

Looking to make my system faster and am hoping folks can share their thoughts. Currently have a Shuttle AK11 mobo with an 1.13 GHz AMD Athlon and 768 MB RAM. Would maxing out the RAM (mobo supports 1.5 GB) make a big difference in speed or am I getting into the land of diminishing returns? Thinking about upgrading mobo, processor and RAM but would like to put it off for a little while. Thoughts?

 

[sturm]

Hold off to build a new system. There is no need to upgrade the ram. I have an old athlon 1.4 with 512 ram running xp pro and it runs just fine.
Adding more memory will only allow you to run more programs at one time. It wont really speed up the computer at all.
With all the new technology out now you would be better off just saving your money for a new computer.

 

[a071250]

Thanks for the info!

 

[BrentUnitedMem]

diminishing returns... good concept.

It appears 1GB is optimal for winXP, so anything above 1GB would put it in the land of diminishing returns.

Too much memory helps speed up your computer by preventing the CPU from memory mapping to the hard drive.

Too much memory helps slow your computer down because it takes a little longer to iterate through a larger memory. Also, memory mapping to larger memories is a bit more complicated/extensive.

And so there is a balance between size vs. performance.

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