Performance question

On my computer i have been playing games listeing to music talking on IM programs and using the net. I'm trying to figure out if my performance will increase by getting more RAM or if its the processor. when i'm playing a game that's taking up a lot of memory and i alt+tab to my desktop it works fine, but when i put other programs loaded on there that are taking up a good bit of memory to it takes a slower time to load the screen and for the other programs to work, and it also takes a longer time to load the game back up. To make it faster with alt tabbing and not having it to wait to load and respond do i need more RAM or a better CPU? or what?

 

tbh a bit of both, more ram will aid with the alt/tabing but its your cpu that does the loading.

 

I would recommend trying to add RAM first as that's usually a cheaper option. Personal experience speaking here, my processor is an athlon 64 3500+ and my mom's is a sempron 3200+, and my computer w/1G of ram using her processor preforms better than hers w/512M ram and my processor. I know this because I thought my processor was dying and swapped them out to test, as it turns out it was my PSU.

 

so if i get more RAM it will minimize quicker and i can run my programs quickly after it minimizes?

 

This might help what i'm saying, On the game counter strike source when i'm playing smaller maps it can go quicker but when i'm playing bigger maps such as de_piraseni or something it takes a longer-slower time to load

 

anything?

 

yes buying more will soleve THAT issue

 

more ram is never a bad thing, it will make your pc more responsive in all areas.

your loading times are maily governed by your cpu, so if you have 2 system with all the same parts (mobo, ram, drives and such) but one of them has a faster cpu that one will load quicker.

more ram is a good cost effective way of breathing new life in to a slowing system.

consult the overclocking thread for some info if you want to try getting more performance out of you setup.

 

alright i think i'll get one more gb of RAM then. But one question does it make a diffrence if its 2 sticks of 1gb or if its 1 stick of 1gb?

 

2 sticks it does make a difference since two sticks of 1gb is 2gb and 1 stick of 1gb is just 1gb

 

noo.... i mean 2 sticks of 512 or 1 stick of 1 gb sorry

 

if u have 2 sticks of 512 it will turn on dual channel making the ram faster transfer at 128bit havin only 1 stick of 1gb would cause the motherboard to turn off dual channel making the ram go at 64bit

 

hmmm lets say i got one stick of 1gb and later i got another stick of the same kind would dual channel go back on?

 

yes

 

To be more clear, it has to be perfectly identical to enable dual channel. I've gotten the same stick of the same brand of the same size, and because of other differences dual channel did not work. You may want to consider just getting a dual channel set if you can afford it, to make sure that dual channel works.

 

probably ure motherboard didnt support dual channel

 

My motherboard supports dual channel.

 

i mean it would make sense if it went faster beecuae the bigger maps take up more memory and then it takes up more time to switch to desktop but smaller it takes less time yyou know?

 

Anything your computer can't do in RAM, it does with the hard drive. This causes slowdown. If your computer uses IDE, not SATA, it will slow down even more. Ram upgrade would do you a WORLD of good without being that expensive. Get a 1 gig dual channel set, doesn't have to be high dollar ram, my system's running 1 gig of corsair valueselect (dual channel), and it's wonderful.

 

ok, well i have 1gb of RAM right now and i'm not sure if it's dual channel. how can i find out if it is? it's 2 sticks of 512 so i think it is but not sure. and if i bought another two sticks of 512 would it have to be the same kind to keep dual channel going or could it be diffrent? and i'm not sure if it's ide or whatnot but if it is how can I improve the hard drives speed or what ever?

thanks