Upgrading ram from 4gb - 8gb

Woofstuff

is it worth my while upgrading my ram??

I have windows 7 64bit with 4gb ram and a core i3 processor... can be upgraded to 8gb but is it worth my while??

Sometimes I a have alot open at once...autocad...adobe pdf...microsoft word,microsoft excel, firefox,crome... etc etc...

I dont do video editing or the likes...

Is it worth it?

cant get on crucials website at the moment down for maintenance

Voodu Child

When you are doing something that you think would be typical of your normal useage scenario, bring up resource monitor and look at ram useage.

'In use' is in green and 'standby' is mid-blue.

If you are using ('in use') anywhere near to all your ram, then an upgrade is worthwhile. If you're only using say half your ram and the rest is going to superfetch ('standby') then it would be pointless to upgrade.

Woofstuff

Voodu Child wrote: »

When you are doing something that you think would be typical of your normal useage scenario, bring up resource monitor and look at ram useage.

'In use' is in green and 'standby' is mid-blue.

If you are using ('in use') anywhere near to all your ram, then an upgrade is worthwhile. If you're only using say half your ram and the rest is going to superfetch ('standby') then it would be pointless to upgrade.

Ok... i did what you say... I opened a few programmes that i commonly use... just opened them some of them wasnt actually using at the time...

Heres the results... what do you think?>?? I dont see anything about superfetch???


cpu usage by montytheferret, on Flickr

coylemj

Voodu Child said to use Resource Monitor, not the Task Manager.

Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Resource Monitor

Voodu Child

Woofstuff wrote: »

Ok... i did what you say... I opened a few programmes that i commonly use... just opened them some of them wasnt actually using at the time...

Heres the results... what do you think?>?? I dont see anything about superfetch???

That's the task manager, resource monitor is one click away (see the button). I was just suggesting something that would present it to you in a bar form but it's all the same, you can see your ram useage.

You're using 2.62GB, and ~1.3GB is free.

Win7 has decided to fill all that free memory with cached stuff (this is what superfetch is) but it's still essentially free ram, ready to be used as soon as it's needed.

Unused ram is basically a waste, I mean superfetch is useful up to a point but you certainly don't want 5 or 6 GBs of free memory. So I think an upgrade to 8GB would be over the top given your current useage.

Keep an eye on your useage and maybe go up to 6GB if you start seeing your actual useage getting close to 4GB.

Woofstuff

Well i just order 2 X 4gb of Ram.

Microsoft Excel kept freezing on me and i was convinced i need to get the ram.. panicked cause i dont have the time for excel to be freezin on me!!

Just realised it was probably going slow cause i had the laptop on power-save mode when i was low on battery earlier without a charger....

Now ive to decide whether to just leave the order... or to ring up and cancel it....

The consensus im getting is that theres no point in upgrading from 4gb - 8gb??

Overheal

how you know its RAM: when you freeze up, look at your Tower. If the HDD light is going mental, it's probably the RAM. If not, it's probably the CPU.

Pretty simple system I know, that relies on the blinking or non-blinking of a lonely LED, but damnit it has worked for me for ten fricken years.