Few Qs about laptop RAM

Duffman

Thinking about upgrading my Dell Latitude D600. It's been ages since I bought RAM and I just have a few questions about it. At the moment I have 512mb - 2X 256mb DDR 266 (PC 2100). I'm looking to upgrade to a gig.

1. I know the extra memory will be useful for ram hungry apps but do you think there'll be a noticeable performance boost for day to day stuff like browsing? There never seems to be much swapping going on under XP or linux.

2. The system has DDR memory. Does this mean DDR2 won't work?

3. Current speed is 266, will 333 or even 400 work and will this have a significant impact on performance?

4. One more System has two slots. Buying 2 X 512 seems to be cheaper than 1 X 1GB. Apart from leaving a free slot, is there any reason to choose one config over the other?

Thanks.

blorg

I'd suggest that you look at Crucial who I find very good and competitive on price. They have a very good system selector so you don't need to worry about the RAM type/compatibility, you just tell them what computer model you have and they tell you what RAM will work (they also guarantee this and will refund if it doesn't.)

Faster RAM of the same type will generally work but only at the lower speed (Crucial suggest PC2700, e.g. 333, but if your laptop is 266 it will only run at that speed.) You will see no performance benefit whatsoever by getting faster RAM.

This is your Latitude D600. AFAIK with this laptop it will make no difference whether you go for 2x512 or 1x1024. 2x512 will be a good bit cheaper, except if you wanted to upgrade again and have 2x512 you will have to throw some of your existing memory out. 1gb is likely going to be plenty for you in that laptop though anyway.

Don't know if DDR2 would work, I presume you want to get this because it's cheaper? (As there will be no performance benefit to you.)

irlrobins

AFAIK , DDR2 won't work.

Agree with what Blorg said. 1Gb is more than enough. If you ever come to the stage of looking to upgrade I'd imagine you'll upgrade the whole unit and not just the RAM.

Also look at www.shop4memory.com. They are very efficient and competively priced.

Gurgle

Duffman wrote:

1. I know the extra memory will be useful for ram hungry apps but do you think there'll be a noticeable performance boost for day to day stuff like browsing? There never seems to be much swapping going on under XP or linux.

2. The system has DDR memory. Does this mean DDR2 won't work?

3. Current speed is 266, will 333 or even 400 work and will this have a significant impact on performance?

4. One more System has two slots. Buying 2 X 512 seems to be cheaper than 1 X 1GB. Apart from leaving a free slot, is there any reason to choose one config over the other?

Thanks.

1. No
2. Yes
3. 333 or 400 will work, at 266.
4. No

It all depends on your motherboard, and Dell don't tend to sell upgradeable systems.

blorg

I went from 512 to 768 in a Sony Vaio and I did see a bit of an improvement (but certainly not as much as previously going from 256 to 512, which was a major improvement.)

The other thing you might consider, however, is the hard disk - I went from 4200rpm to a 7200rpm hard disk, (Travelstar 7K60) and the speed difference is night and day, the thing whizzes along now.

Gurgle

blorg wrote:

I went from 4200rpm to a 7200rpm hard disk.

Did the guy from the museum show up and take the 4200rpm disk back ?

Stephen

4200rpm isn't all that uncommon on laptops, gurgle. Slower rotational speed = less battery drain.

blorg

Sure, 5400rpm has only started to become the laptop standard quite recently and 7200rpm on a laptop is probably as common as 10 or 15,000rpm on the desktop. Making the change to 7200rpm is really what gave this notebook that nippy 'desktop feel', and although the battery life is probably marginally affected (1.1A against 1.0A) I generally have it plugged in anyway. So although only a PIII-1.2Ghz it is a hell of a lot faster than a newer notebook (or indeed desktop) with 256mb and a 4200/5400rpm disk.

Gurgle

Stephen wrote:

4200rpm isn't all that uncommon on laptops, gurgle. Slower rotational speed = less battery drain.

OK, I stand corrected.
Sarcasm reflexes kicking in a bit prematurely

Duffman

Thanks for the replies all.