Two or Four Gigs RAM
 

I'm using an old 3.0 P4 w/ 2 gigs of RAM. I've been holding out on geeting a new machine until 64 bit Widows and Vegas become available and are stable.

So I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading my dinosaur to 4 gigs of Ram? It will cost about $300 and I'm just not sure if the increase in performance warrants it.

BTW, I know that Windows XP does not acatually use all four gig for applications, but it will use about three gig apps and the rest for XP itself.

Anyone else make a similar upgrade? Like the results?

Thanks as always.

Save the coin toward a Core 2 Duo or Quad machine. You are not going to see significant enough of a performance jump to warrant the upgrade. $300 for 2Gb of RAM is way too much. You must be using RAMBUS or something which FURTHER is a reason not too upgrade.

I'd save the money and use it to get a lot of memory when you get your 64-bit machine.

2GB is really plenty on a 32-bit system.

No, as Jon and John :) allready stated you are better of just buying a new one. the two gigs extra might give you a longer ram preview if you are working with after effects or some programs might be a bit more responsive if you have, let's say, after effects, photoshop and premiere pro open at the same time but it's really not worth it.
Now if you would be a mac user that would be a different story since it will be 64bit all the way when the new o.s. comes out and that will utilize up to 16gb of memory, only you have to rob a bank if you want all memory slots filled. :)

By the way, your pc is not a dinosaur yet, I use a similar setup as well and run a business with it, the only difference with a new dual or quad core pc is that I get to drink some extra cups of coffee during the final rendering of a project and get a chance to talk to my family. ;)

It depends on what kind of processing youdo. If you normally render a lot of stillimage files, like bitmaps, more memory will help, immensely. Otherwise, do as everyone has suggested and save for a multi-core rig.

Thanks for the advice ;). BTW, I presently have four 512 Mb sticks, so I have to buy four one Gig sticks to get to four Gig. That's why the price tag is so high.

Well I have 4 gigs in my dual core rig...And helps out especially if you are using multiple operations at the same time. I use XP64 pro and Vegas 7.0E works fine. Then only problem I have found that after enabling my memory hole option in my bios, my m-audio 1010 soundcard doesn't work. I contacted them and they have a beta driver but have no intent to fix the problem since they are now focused on Vista. So I run 2gb when doing the sound but when I render my video project I switch to 4gb. But for your purposes the money would be better spent on getting a dual core or better setup since Vegas uses cpu power more than ram power to render.