This probably isn't "hot news" to everyone, but for those who haven't been converted ......

I've got a pretty average system which is nearly 3 years old -

Athlon 1600 processor

512MB RAM

80GB HDD

Geforce FX5700LE 128MB Graphics

Soundblaster 5.1

I have just bought another 512MB of RAM for

I second that - especially for games like doom 3. Dad has got a lesser graphics card than me but 1gb ram (ive got 512) and his runs doom 3 perfectly... mine wont run it. Thats the only difference

Wait till you change from SDR to DDR.

Better again.

That might take a while - although until I find a game I like better than Desert Combat then there's no rush ....

Funnily I recently changed from 256 to 512MB ram, and have yet to see any noticable improvement (home PC). On my office PC (a PIII) which originally had a wopping 64Mb RAM and Win 98, I found that for Win 2000 to run well I had to up the RAM to 128. When I installed XP, it was a dog with 128, but ran okish with 192Mb, but finally when I got my hands on a 128mb memory module and ditched the replaced the previous 64Mb upgrade with the 128 it did again make a noticeable difference. From that I conclude that for ordinary internet and office work, having more than 256Mb RAM for Windows XP (SP2) is unneccessary. I am sure many games need it however.

With all the added graphical bits and bobs that WinXP has as standard, more Ram is needed so that it performs more smoothly. Opening programs or viewing folders that contain a lot of files is significantly faster with 1gb Ram, compared to 512kb that I used to have, and it makes for more processing power when playing games, so although the framerate you get in games won't increase, they should run more smoothly, as long as the rest of the components in your PC are up to scratch. I personally need to upgrade my processor soon, I hate having to fork out every six months in order to have decent specs for playing games, may have to ditch the PC in favour of Xbox/ PS2, although I hear there aren't many word processing apps for either of those...

significantly faster with 1gb Ram, compared to 512kb

I'm not surprised!

Rob.

Make that 512Mb

With all the added graphical bits and bobs that WinXP has as standard, more Ram is needed so that it performs more smoothly. Opening programs or viewing folders that contain a lot of files is significantly faster with 1gb Ram, compared to 512kb that I used to have, and it makes for more processing power when playing games, so although the framerate you get in games won't increase, they should run more smoothly, as long as the rest of the components in your PC are up to scratch. I personally need to upgrade my processor soon, I hate having to fork out every six months in order to have decent specs for playing games, may have to ditch the PC in favour of Xbox/ PS2, although I hear there aren't many word processing apps for either of those...

Perhaps in your case the extra memory is more noticeable because you have a slow processor. My home pc is a bit more up to date in that respect (although from what you say in no other).

Interestingly if you are looking to upgrade this months Computer Shopper mag has an article rating different processors for various tasks, and cont too popular opinion the good old Intel P4 came top, beating the likes of AMDs Athlon 64 etc. This surpised me some what.

From that I conclude that for ordinary internet and office work, having more than 256Mb RAM for Windows XP (SP2) is unneccessary. I am sure many games need it however.

Under win2k my P4 256mb machine at work regularly grinds to a halt as it starts swapping stuff out to disk - it's not just gamers who need loads of RAM

Pound for pound, RAM is the best upgrade to go for, I believe? (Depending on the speed of the RAM, timing, and all that stuff)

Obviously, my information is a little out of date, coming as it does from the December Edition of same magazine, but I refuse to believe, having worked in IT hardware for the last few years and followed the market for a few years before that, that Intel in the space of two months, have somehow improved the "latest chips" of the December CPU Megatest.........

The P4s performed well in our video-encoding tests but fell behind the Athlon 64 chips in Doom 3, PCMark04 and the other Windows application tests

This was the February 05 issue (which is already out).

Under win2k my P4 256mb machine at work regularly grinds to a halt as it starts swapping stuff out to disk - it's not just gamers who need loads of RAM

Pound for pound' date=' RAM is the best upgrade to go for, I believe? (Depending on the speed of the RAM, timing, and all that stuff)[/quote']

What are you using it for. With me Win 2K did a lot of HDD swap file grinding with 64Mb, but was fine with 128, and with XP it did unbearable amount of swswapping with 128, tolerable with 192 and is just fine with 256, and as yet (only a few days) I have yet to find anything that goes better with 512.

General microsoft office use - mainly excel (max spreadsheet size about 60mb).

Perhaps in your case the extra memory is more noticeable because you have a slow processor. My home pc is a bit more up to date in that respect (although from what you say in no other).

Interestingly if you are looking to upgrade this months Computer Shopper mag has an article rating different processors for various tasks' date=' and cont too popular opinion the good old Intel P4 came top, beating the likes of AMDs Athlon 64 etc. This surpised me some what.[/quote']

My current processor is an Athlon XP2200 clocked to 2600, its runs Windows beautifully, as well as most of the new games coming out at the minute, but I always feel like I'm always fighting to keep up with what is seen as 'decent' spec

My current processor is an Athlon XP2200 clocked to 2600, its runs Windows beautifully, as well as most of the new games coming out at the minute, but I always feel like I'm always fighting to keep up with what is seen as 'decent' spec

Too true, not so bad for me as I am not a gamer (Doom collector edition of 3 original Doom games does me ). I tend to keep my PC untill somthing comes along that my current one really cant hack with its processor. I was happy with my 486DX2-66 untill I really wanted to run PowerGoo, which took about 10 mins just to open on the 486 , then I built a Pentium 166MMX machine to run that programme (and Office 97 that struggled on the 486 (Office 95 had been fine)).

Presently running 1.6Gb page file...so I have 2gb...RAM is king.

Let me say RAM is king.

Intel prompted by AmD have stopped chasing mhz i.e. the 4gig barrier or 6gig under liquid cooling. So the chase for Mhz or raw processing speed is stalled. Why?

They are going for other processing improvements. Chips like the celeron and pentium although having similar clock speeds, eg 2Ghz are totally different beasts, one being far faster. This is what the future bring, more cache on chip, piplines, threading pooling, architecture...thus a machine brought today or last year actually has a long life ahead of it over one say brought 4 years ago which might be on it's last legs and will struggle to be upgraded in a suitable way.

Presently running 1.6Gb page file...so I have 2gb...RAM is king.

Let me say RAM is king.

Intel prompted by AmD have stopped chasing mhz i.e. the 4gig barrier or 6gig under liquid cooling. So the chase for Mhz or raw processing speed is stalled. Why?

They are going for other processing improvements. Chips like the celeron and pentium although having similar clock speeds' date=' eg 2Ghz are totally different beasts, one being far faster. This is what the future bring, more cache on chip, piplines, threading pooling, architecture...thus a machine brought today or last year actually has a long life ahead of it over one say brought 4 years ago which might be on it's last legs and will struggle to be upgraded in a suitable way.[/quote']

Surely the Celeron is just a cut down version of the pentium?

As to which chip is best...erm swings and roundabouts...our cars are far better than a lorry yes, you agree...but a lorry can shift a hell of alot more when it needs to...

There you have Pentium PIV and a 64bit processor.

Gamers prefer the AmD platform at present, workers prefer the Hyper Threading of the Pentium. Processor speed is nothing without the hardware, in fact in some cases it's not really needed. One of the latest dx9 games is bottoled necked on Ram and HD speed not CPu power, in fact it runs fine on an old card/xp chip and a 9800Pro card, a little slow and blocky, but it runs...turn round to a 9800Pro

As to which chip is best...erm swings and roundabouts...our cars are far better than a lorry yes' date=' you agree...but a lorry can shift a hell of alot more when it needs to...

There you have Pentium PIV and a 64bit processor.

Gamers prefer the AmD platform at present, workers prefer the Hyper Threading of the Pentium. Processor speed is nothing without the hardware, in fact in some cases it's not really needed. One of the latest dx9 games is bottoled necked on Ram and HD speed not CPu power, in fact it runs fine on an old card/xp chip and a 9800Pro card, a little slow and blocky, but it runs...turn round to a 9800Pro <10secs boot to windows machine and it plays just aswell, just a bit quicker and a bit less blocky..[/quote']

I would have a gig of memory if ColinD actually sells the memory he promised me

Surely the Celeron is just a cut down version of the pentium?

Yup cut down..try and do anything heavy (define heavy) and the celeron will have you cursing. Same problem with Amd chips, thunderbird for example, a wicked chip, but mhz for mhz it lost to Intel because it's cache etc was lower, which made it's overall real world performance less. Now the fact it was 1/3rd the price and could be run at almost 50% above rating meant it was a great chip, because then on atx66 and 33 cpu power was king...as soon as fancy buttons got a hold (read win xp) Ram was needed. If you kill off all the un-nessecary services in xp and to some extent 2k, you can claim back 120 odd meg of ram.

I would have a gig of memory if ColinD actually sells the memory he promised me

Working on SWMBO who is lugging along on a XP2400 and AT66 drive...she's beginning to get the hint...new clutch or a small hyrdo plant on the desk.

Working on SWMBO who is lugging along on a XP2400 and AT66 drive...she's beginning to get the hint...new clutch or a small hyrdo plant on the desk.

But just think how much closer youll be with extra money in yer skyrocket

I'd be a bit wary of getting memory off Ebay - I always get mine from Crucial - www.crucial.com/uk - top quality memory and service second to none. Prices might be higher, but free delivery and an excellent guarantee.

Yes got my extra 256Mb from them.