Well obviously 4 is greater than 2, but I have heard that when upgrading from 1GB memory to 2GB is a good helpful jump, however from 2GB to 4GB there isn't much of a difference. Is it worth the $50 (average) to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB?

What I'm hoping is that this will help my programs like Flash (and maybe After Effects, if its in a good mood) export .mov movies. Because right now they're not even wanting to start it out really.

You will see a difference in performance between 2GB and 4GB in a lot of things. Also 4GB really is the standard today, 2GB is yesterday. What operating system you are running will also determine if you should get 4GB or not.

I'm on XP SP2.

64bit or 32bit? Because 32bit operating systems will not be able to utilize 4GB of RAM, they will only see about 3.4GB max.

I'm on 32bit. So not worth it?

If I were you I'd wait until you get a 64bit operating system. How is 2GB working for you right now? If you don't have any significant speed issues then you should be fine for now.

I do not think that you would notice a difference between 2GB and 4GB of ram on XP 32-bit. 2GB is plenty for Windows XP and should be enough for all but the most intensive software. On a 32-bit OS you will only be able to use something between 3GB and 3.5GB of your 4GB of ram. If you do plan on moving to 64-bit soon, then you may want to do the upgrade.

I would say go for 4GB. I use flash as well and i noticed much improvement with 4GB over 2GB memory, even though its really only 3.3GB. Also, if you use onboard video, the shared memory is taken from the unused portion of memory I believe, so your video isn't stealing your memory that you use/need. Plus, if you ever upgrade to 64-bit, you'll have 4GB!

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2008/07/08/is-more-memory-better/1

Here is a good article on how much memory to use. There are pros and cons to both.

A 32bit OS can only use 3.2GB actually. I have 4GB and this is the case. Personally I say go for the extra 2GB because, well, it's cheap as hell.

Michael C said:


That is incorrect. Its all about memory addressing.

It can 'address' up to 4 no problem - whats left in the address space depends on what other devices required memory addresses (i.e. vid card etc).

Whats left after all other devices have used up some memory address space, is left for RAM.

In your case, 3.2GiB worth

Anyone running a 32bit os and 4gb is going to have this problem then.

Michael C said:


Most likely, yes.

The standard today is 6 gigs. Ty core i7 No. wait. 12 gigs. Y'all are just outdated

Would the fact that I am running all this on laptop with an dual core CPU at 1.66Ghz affect the upgrade to the 4GB RAM?

No, just whether your OS is x86 or x64.