How much RAM for a T61 with Vista 32-bit? 2GB or 3GB?

[Steve06]

Hi,
I'm about to order a T61 with 1 GB of RAM pre-installed and plan to buy either an additional 1 or 2 GB module (from a cheaper source than Lenovo) and install it myself.
Here in Germany, the prices are about 40 and 115 Euros, for the 1 and 2 GB module, respectively (including shipping).
I'm not considering 4GB because it has been said that Vista 32-bit would mostly not recognize them in full.

1. Do you expect a dramatic rise in performance from 3 over 2 GB, given that I do a lot of web development and graphics work?
2. If there are 1 + 2GB, isn't it the case that dual channel mode will not be available? Hence, this would result in a drop in performance, wouldn't it?

And another off-topic question: Why the T61's don't ship with vista 64-bit these days? I believe that major applications should support it and that Lenovo's hardware should have adequate driver support?!

Any comment is welcome.
Steve

[erik]

for graphics work, adobe applications (photoshop especially) like to have as much memory as possible.   3GB would be noticeably better than 2GB.

if you install 3GB (2+1) then the memory won't be in dual-channel mode.   however, at the current speeds of modern computer systems, the difference between single- and dual-channel memory is so minuscule that you will never notice the difference.

the only x64 version of vista available for configuration here in the US is vista business 64.   it's not very popular right now because of a lack of third-party driver support.   vista x86 will work with most XP-compatible apps/drivers where vista x64 (or any other 64-bit microsoft OS) is hit-or-miss with compatibility.

[Seajosh]

I bought a T61p last week and it's configured with 3GB of RAM. A lot of applications are memory hungry (I'm looking at you Firefox) and more memory should prevent the OS from hitting the swap file as often.

[whizkid]

If you do CPU-bound work for long periods, 4GB might make sense, since it should handle those kinds of tasks around 10% faster.

Consider if you do a task like video transcoding that takes two hours, you'd save 12 minutes or so. If you do that a lot, the memory could pay for itself depending on how you or your employer/customers value your time.

Then again, if you do it all the time, it might make more sense to buy an entirely separate machine for those tasks.

[NaT]

I think for Vista, you'd better go with a new 2GB module (total 3GB). Now with Vista+Core2Duo, a 2GB is kind of minimum to gain good Core2Duo performance. 3GB would be much better to run application. You can upgrade 4GB later in a year or two when you need it (and when the price of memory comes down a bit).

Well, the price of 2GB RAM here is a bit cheaper than in Europe though, 2GB ram of Kingston at about $US 110.