A noticeable difference?

Here's what I've got - Asus sourced HP mobo, Athalon 64x2 am2 2400mhz, 2GB (2x1GB ddr2 4200), GeForce 8400GS video card, onboard sound. I don't game a lot and what I play this runs okay as long as the graphics are down a bit. I know it's showing it's age but we're pretty much broke, but I can pick up a 2GB kit for $35. So here's the question would adding 2GB more ram show a noticeable improvement or should I just set the $ aside towards a new build? If it makes a difference a new build is gonna be at least 8-12 months off as pretty much nothing in this system will work on a newer board.

Well, two things. First, unless you move to a 64-bit OS, you'll only see about 1-1.5GB of that 2GB. Second, your RAM is not the bottleneck in that system. At least not for gaming. If you're doing any CAD or software development, it'll probably help though. If you can pick it up cheap, though, it'll probably give you a performance boost...I just wouldn't pay retail for it. New DDR is ridiculously expensive these days.

Thanks. That's the input I was looking for. Since it won't transfer to anything else if it won't give a "good" boost in performance is a waste.

Lemme put it this way; if you can get another 2GB of RAM for probably $30 or less, I would go for it. Any more and it won't really be worth it.

The version of windows you're running will also make a difference - you'll probably see a bigger performance boost in 7 or to a lesser extent Vista than you would in XP...

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Originally Posted by x88x

Lemme put it this way; if you can get another 2GB of RAM for probably $30 or less, I would go for it. Any more and it won't really be worth it.

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I'm thinking I'll just skip it. It'd be one thing if it could be used in the next build. But since this one is DDR2 and anything in the future won't be it isn't cost effective.

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Originally Posted by slaveofconvention

The version of windows you're running will also make a difference - you'll probably see a bigger performance boost in 7 or to a lesser extent Vista than you would in XP...

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I'd probably see a bigger boost in performance switching to 7 than from upping the ram. If the money was available I'd do it just because I've got XP media center and it's alway been a little buggier than XP pro on my wifes computer.

So I think for the time being I'm not going to spend anything on this thing.

Just to clear up the ram info. I have 5.5GB installed on my win xp 32bit, and the OS will see 2.75GB of it. Running 3DMark06, it will detect all of it, but because of the 32bit OS it can only see/use the 2.75GB.

I have run win7 32bit and 64bit (not very long) on this pc as well as xp 64bit and actually get better performance with the xp 32bit.

I am in the same boat as you as I was looking to do a partial upgrade on my 4yr old system. Decided to just add a vid card for more gaming performance and upgrade the whole system in a yr or 2.

You'll need a new power supply soon

With the SLI, my mobo will be pretty much maxed out of any slots available except a couple IDE that I don't intend to use. The newegg calculator puts me about 734W, even with a 10% window, the PSU still has a little wiggle room.

Thanks for reminding me. I was looking at the gtx 460's to sli and that would have put me just under the limit, plus i wanted to upgrade to a quad core which would have busted the rated limit.

Try this PSU calculator instead...they give you a number more in line with what your system will actually use (+~20%) instead of an inflated value from someone trying to sell you a new PSU. Your current setup comes to a recommended 376W. Even with dual 460's it only comes to 516W; well within the limits of your current PSU.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp