Memory upgrades for Vista - Which option?

[tom_gymrat]

Hello everyone!

I've currently got a core 2 duo E6300 overclocked to 2.45ghz, 1gb PC6400 (800mhz) DDR2, radeon x1650 512mb, 74gb Raptor primary and 320gb sata2 slave.

I've just installed Vista Ultimate and I have to say I'm very impressed. It's running just as fast as XP was and I've had no problems.

Right, so I'm wanting to upgrade the memory on Vista and as some of you may know Vista has the option to use a USB memory stick. I'm just trying to price up the best way of getting the most performance for my money.

Option 1: 1gb ram upgrade and 4gb memory stick
Option 2: 2gb ram upgrade

I couldn't really afford the 2gbs of ram AND a 4gb memory stick, possibly 1-2gb max, so what would give me the most performance?

Products wise, I've seen these for ram:
Elixir 1GB PC2-6400 Quickcode: #24474
Arianet 1GB PC2-6400 Quickcode: #26111 - Same price, any difference?

And for USB memory sticks:
Patriot 4GB Xporter XT Boost (150x) Quickcode: #28334
Patriot 4GB Xporter XT USB ReadyBoost Pen Drive Quickcode: #26849 - The second one is 200x which is 32MB/s read speed, so I'm assuming the 150x is slightly slower. My question is, will I notice a great deal of difference between these two sticks? Enough to warrent an extra £10?

Thanks a lot for looking at my question!!!

- Tom

[tom_gymrat]

Hmm I've just noticed a third option.

I could afford a 2gb 200x USB stick and 2gbs ram, that would come to just under £70.

[Lynx]

Just get the internal ram, its far faster than pendrives. I have a drive for readyboost and to be honest it laggs the system slightly, internal ram would be far more efficient even if you put in less G's

[tom_gymrat]

Lag your system in what way? Like when Vista saved information to the drive itself?

[Aaron]

Definitely the internal ram and not the readyboost.

[Hosser]

ReadyBoost is ********. It's only worthwhile if you have flash memory hanging around - don't go buying new stuff purely to use as RAM.

Get a nice fat load od DRAM instead. Just forget all about ReadyBoost - I even disabled the service on my installation, it's just not worth it.

[tom_gymrat]

Ok so the consensus is on the RAM and not the usb sticks. Thanks everyone.

[GOONERUK]

yes only use RAM, its so cheap now so why not....only use a pendrive if you already have one...But i think they have to be empty to work, i did try mine once and Vista didnt like it cos it had data on it.

[Hosser]

[quote:6e5a595fce=\"GOONERUK\"]yes only use RAM, its so cheap now so why not....only use a pendrive if you already have one...But i think they have to be empty to work, i did try mine once and Vista didnt like it cos it had data on it.[/quote:6e5a595fce]

They need to be formatted, yes.

[Lynx]

No mine ran with data on it...

[Hosser]

The portion of flash memory that Vista uses for memory will not have data on it. That would be impossible.

[Lynx]

How is it impossible? I only used 880mb of my drive, and it did have work on it.

[Hosser]

[quote:34d7d3ac5a=\"Lynx\"]How is it impossible? I only used 880mb of my drive, and it did have work on it.[/quote:34d7d3ac5a]

It's impossible because ReadyBoost needs empty space to work, unless you want it overwriting your data. Which it can't do for obvious reasons.

\"I only used 880MB\" seems to suggest you have empty space on your flash drive. That is what is being used for ReadyBoost.

[Lynx]

No, i used 880mb for readyboost and left the other bit with some data on it.

[Hosser]

[quote:70dd5ef1c3=\"Hosser\"]The portion of flash memory that Vista uses for memory will not have data on it. That would be impossible.[/quote:70dd5ef1c3]

I'll just repeat what I said in a previous post. <_<