Upgrading Memory- if my front side bus is only 400...?

Question

Is the $100-$150 cost justified to upgrade from what I currently have: 512mb of PC3200 to a gig or more? I know memory in general is a great thing but the tech said that on an 2004 HP Pavilion with only a 400mhz FSB and a Celeron D, it might not be worth it...I might not notice much difference at all. He said that upgrading the HD to get more free disk space would be a more noticable difference in speed. What do you think? I run general office applications...MS Office, IE and an Act Database.

Answer 1

I second what the previous answerer says, you need to find a new tech. Buy the RAM he suggested it is good RAM, and as for a HD adding speed, no not really and definately it won't add more than adding RAM.

Answer 2

If you are running several of these applications at the same time, more RAM will definately increase your performance. Although your system is a bit outdated, having less than a gb of RAM just makes it all the more slow.



Also, a half gig of 400 MHz RAM should NOT be costing you $100-$150!!!! Slower RAM is very cheap. Check out the link below. You can get a stick of Kingston ValueRAM (excellent brand) for $53!



I think this guy is trying to take you for all you're worth (if he's the one who gave you the price). Also, if you don't know anything about installing hardware, all you have to do to add RAM to your system is literally stick it in a slot. That's it. DON'T let some tech charge you $30 to do it for you!



I hope this helps!

Answer 3

As far as i know PC3200 is same 400Mhz FSB, and is compatible with 400Mhz FSB processoor.



for an understanding of how this 3200 comes , a 400Mhz FSB system actually operates on 200Mhz , and data transfer takes place at rise and falling edge of the clock, thus doubling the memory clock, tranfereing 8 bytes at a time ,thus we get 200 x 2 x 8 =3200



so i suggest that adding 512 mb of Pc3200 memory module will definitly increase your system performance,



Adding a HDD will only allow you to have more program installed on your machine and more space for your files



so go for memory upgrade

Answer 4

I have 512 Mb of PC3200 RAM, a Celeron D (3.2 GHz), running Windows XP Pro and I'm quite happy with it. Actually, I was happy when I had 256 Mb. Hmm.....



If your hard drive is like 20 Gb or something, then you will notice a good difference if you upgrade to say... a 160 Gb hard drive. But if its 80 Gb, you probably wouldn't.

Answer 5

JUST did what you are asking a week ago, same setup, went from 512 to 1 gig. Umm, i notice nothing. and the HD upgrade making it faster? He wanted your cash, sure a faster read/write drive may work, but it may work just like that gig of ram did for me.

Answer 6

For Celeron garde Pc or notebook, i think a 512MB cacpacity is more than enough...i hv to correct my position on two variation: one, if you hv a video sharing your main memory and two, if you hv the habit of opening many application at same time. under these two conditions, you may need 1G memory even if you CPU is slower type.