1.5gigs to 2gigs - is it worth the upgrade?

[jackallll]

I have a t60 2623d6u with 1.5 gigs of ram (stock 512 + transcend 1 gig) and Vista Enterprise/Office 2007 installed. Since installing Office, Outlook and the other Office programs have been very sluggish. Other programs seem to run fine.

I'm fairly confident that the sluggish performance can be remedied by adding more ram and/or a 7200rpm HD. Does anyone think I'll see increased performance by updrading to 2gigs of ram (adding a matching 1gig stick of transcend)? I'd rather not spend the money on the HD at this time.

thanks!

[Kyocera]

I'd go for the upgrade, I don't think you can have to much ram running vista. IMHO

[mgo]

I have a t60 2623d6u with 1.5 gigs of ram (stock 512 + transcend 1 gig) and Vista Enterprise/Office 2007 installed. Since installing Office, Outlook and the other Office programs have been very sluggish. Other programs seem to run fine.

I'm fairly confident that the sluggish performance can be remedied by adding more ram and/or a 7200rpm HD. Does anyone think I'll see increased performance by updrading to 2gigs of ram (adding a matching 1gig stick of transcend)? I'd rather not spend the money on the HD at this time.

thanks!

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Greetings, I am running Vista on a ThinkPad T43p machine right now. It has 2 gig of ram installed and a 5400 rpm hard drive. Performance is pretty good. I just finished a really big movie editing project which went better than it used to on the same machine running XP.

I have run Vista on as little as 1 gig of ram (on a R51 ThinkPad-not exactly a speed demon) and that ran pretty well, too.

My opinion is....get rid of the Vista visual extras, like Aero Glass and Flip 3D unless you really have a need for them. (not likely)

Set your machine up to run in the Classic mode, including Classic view in Windows Explorer. Dump your desktop wallpaper and other unnecessary visuals. This will make a big difference. Also, go into the Advanced System Settings and change Performance to "best system performance". You can then change any preferences to suit your wishes such as shadow under cursor, etc. This will increase speed.

As long as you have at least a 5400 rpm drive and that 1.5 gig of RAM your machine should run well if you clean up the power-munching visuals that Vista defaults to.

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[sugo]

If I were in the same situation, I would wait for a while and then replace the 512MB with a 2GB module.

[pianowizard]

I agree with sugo that it's better to replace the 512MB module with a 2GB one. 2GB SODIMMs aren't that expensive any more, often under $100.

jackallll, I lived in Somerville for 3 years during grad school.

[SHoTTa35]

hmm.. well yeah i agree on the more RAM. I don't think turning off the AERO stuff will make a difference tho. All that's rendered in the GPU so the CPU is free to do other things (unlike GDI of the past where the CPU did that)

I have Vista Business running on my system and while i don't tax it like crazy i still got a nice boost when upgrading from 1.0GB to 1.5 then still more even if it was only a tiny bit more when i got 2.0GB.

[Melvyn]

Wait, wait, wait!!!

Nobody have talked about the most important issue in this matter: WDDM

With my T42 and 512MB of ram, WDDM shares 64mb from ram to video.
With 768mb it takes 128mb
With 1gb it takes 256mb
With 1.5gb it takes 320mb
With 1.5gb and modded drivers it takes 512mb from ram to video.
With 2gb and modded drivers it takes 768mb

So, the matter you must watch here is: how much of your ram has been stolen by your video??

Right click your PC, and in Performance index, click details, looking for a screen like this old one: http://www.infosantiago.com/melvyn/vist ... etails.jpg then see in the Graphic chapter: dedicated system memory and shared system memory.

Shared System Memory is memory from your ram stolen by your video.

No matter if you use it or not. Nobody really need 768mb or 1gb or video for real live. And if needed, don't need it in a thinkpad.

So, if you're going to buy more ram your question must be: I'm going to buy this for ram (performance) or to video (waste)?

[thedogwarrior]

I always used to run XP in Classic mode - hate the Blue/Silver/Olive and XP-styled elements.

I've found that running Vista in Classic visual mode is.. unusual. And crazily, it seems that the UI is *slower* using Classic mode, even on my T60, X1400 ATI graphics, and all. UI is much snappier in Aero.

Sounds crazy, but your mileage may vary..

[SHoTTa35]

Wait, wait, wait!!!
<snip>
So, if you're going to buy more ram your question must be: I'm going to buy this for ram (performance) or to video (waste)?

Well Melvyn, you're getting a lil too excited there The AMD drivers will share the RAM based on the amount you have. It's not like before with those integrated where they allocated a certain amount for theselves. HyperMemory shares it with the OS and those numbers only state what it will share, not what it's using or has stolen from the OS.

So while my video card only has 64MB it will take another 256MB more if needed for total of 319MB it says in the display adapter area. No need to panic, no need to worry

[snife]

No-one has mentioned dual channel mode, the increase in performance you will get with 2x1GB will be worthwhile and its about more than just having an extra 512MB, however, I still believe the diggest bottleneck on the systems is the HDD so if I had to choose one, i'd go for the HDD upgrade.

[Melvyn]

A good point shared by snife.

I was benchmarking my T42 iwth Everest Ultimate and read/write spead are much better with 2 dimms of 512mb than only one of 1gb, or 1gb+512mb.

SHoTTa35:
Why my machine start crying when I reach 1gb? With no video usage. I'm programmer, not gamer. I'm pretty fine with 64mb, and I tested disabling aero. I'm pretty sure that I don't have more than 1gb of memory available.

I've been searching for two thing I didn't found
a) Some way to know how much video memory I'm using.
b) Some way to set wddm how much memory I want to share.

I've not find a solution for anyone

[snife]

A good point shared by snife.

I was benchmarking my T42 iwth Everest Ultimate and read/write spead are much better with 2 dimms of 512mb than only one of 1gb, or 1gb+512mb

Are you saying that performance was better with 2x 512MB rather than 1x1GB and 1x512MB? I always knew that dual channel would increase performance but i thought more memory would always be the better option overall.

[jackallll]

Thanks to everyone for the helpful responses.

Well, when looking into the video memory issue i reran the Windows Experience Index (first time since installing vista) and watched my score plummet from 3.5 to 2.2. The culprit? The graphics score was 2.2...down from around 3.5 pre-vista. Ive updated all my drivers and can't understand why this would be the case. Also, vista is sharing 511megs with the video card.

I think I will invest in the 1gig module to benefit from both the extra ram and dual channel. I feel that 2gigs should be enough for my needs but wonder ifa 2gig module would be better (1g X 2g).

Pianowizard: I'm attending grad school also.

[Melvyn]

I say the number reported by benchmarking are higher when I used 2 dimms.

Aproximately: ~4200mb/s vs ~2450mb/s

In fact: 2 dimms 512mb each is the same amount than 1 dimm of 1gb

Also, the 4200 read is when using the 2 Elpida dimms that came with the TP. Using another brand (Swissbit) mixed with one Elpida don't give the same read value, ever when the 2 dimms have the same characteristics.

Anyways, is not easy to find a diference in real world when you work with 1gb or 1.5gb

My test were only using benchmark tools, only for some minutes.

A good point shared by snife.

I was benchmarking my T42 iwth Everest Ultimate and read/write spead are much better with 2 dimms of 512mb than only one of 1gb, or 1gb+512mb

Are you saying that performance was better with 2x 512MB rather than 1x1GB and 1x512MB? I always knew that dual channel would increase performance but i thought more memory would always be the better option overall.