Different sized rams?

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I'm upgrading my mothers computer and it turns out that it has sodimm ddr2 ram which is so much more expensive then ddr3. Now obviously the question is NOT whether can mix those the question is, because they are so expensive and there is already one two gb ram in there, would it be ok to put in another four? Yes the computer can handle it, it's upgradable to 8gb. Yes the best thing I'm sure would be to buy two 4gb but since they are so expensive I was wondering if the system will run smoothly on 2+4gb. Also if I upgrade to 6gb should I also upgrade the windows to 64bit? As far as I understand 32bit can handle up to 4gb ram and then you should go for 64bit os.

if the motherboard is dual channel capable then buying a 2gb stick as close to the one already there as possible would give you more bang for the buck,

dual channeling has issues with handling different sized ram blocks so the 2+2 will be almost as fast if not faster than 2+4.

Yes that is what I was wondering Thank you!

Not really - it depends on the motherboard chipset... later Intel chipsets halfway through the Core2Duo line started using good old single & dual-channel RAM but also HYBRID mode. Adding 2+4 would run dual-channel for 4GB then single for the remaining 2GB.

Small matter... single vs. dual is such a small difference in real-world performance it's not worth worrying about.


Questions first though... She'd need to be running Vista or 7 but the fancier 64-bit version. If not, 3.25GB is the most the system will see, even if there's more in there!

Another question... what makes it feel slow? If it feels like programs are taking too long to load but run fine once they do - a solid-state or hybrid drive (replacing the old one) would make the biggest difference! Far, far more than the extra 2GB would.

On the other hand, if she wants to run some big, fancy programs (like video editing) they can get very hungry for all the RAM it can gobble... You'd still be looking at the 4GB stick AND totally reinstalling a 64-bit version of her Windows.

Without knowing for sure what her need for upgrading is, I'm 90% sure the SSD or Hybrid drive would make a much more noticeable difference. They often come with the software necessary to clone the contents of the old disk over to the new one (provided you have room for two or the ability to make one external temporarily) - some shops will even do this for you pretty cheap.

I wish you lived closer... I have spare parts galore just sitting around!

there probably are plenty of new software workarounds,

ont know if the same holds rue for the motherboard in question.

there is a marked difference in measured performance between single and dual channel, the difference however wont be felt by someone who doesnt play games or edit extreme amounts of data, like media editing.
i tested this on an older rig i had, brand new at the time though, it was a core 2 quad, cant remeber the chipset but it was the premium gigagybte quad bios boards.
i had quite a collection of nice ram modules just sitting in a closet so i tested the performance in 3dmark and pimark for 2+2/2+2(same config as i run in my current desktop), 2/4+4, 2+2/4+4, 2+2/2+4.
the slash denotes seperate channels

the third option gave the greatest performance as it should,
followed by the first

the fourth and second both lost a huge amount of performance(10-15% of the total score), the fourth also had stability issues under pressure

now once you actually look at the channels it is clear that the difference lies in dual channel capability, the 2+4 and singular 2 module meanth that even if the ram amount was higher than the first configuration it didnt perform as well.

all the ram modules ran 1333 mhz as far as i remember, could be wrong on that part though was a couple of years ago.
the stability issue could be with the CL stepping of the ram being different on teh same channel in teh case of 2+4

bluemax is correct in suggesting that the actual issue could very well be latency plus the spee dof the drive.

if the computer ran well in the past on the same windows as teh slowdown then there could be a software issue such as fragmentation, malware or simply squandered resources from programs as well,, though admittedly the first isnt something i have seen as a problem for a long time.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/PARALLEL-PROCESSING,1705-12.html

The difference is just not noticeable. You'll feel more difference of "enough vs. NOT enough". I doubt your mom is using several programs at once, or very fancy stuff, so the 2GB module is probably "enough". When you have enough, adding more will make very little difference - it won't feel any faster.

You'll feel a HUGE increase from a faster hard drive, either a pure solid state (SSD) or if you need more space and lower cost, the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive, part SSD and part normal hard drive. Much larger odds that your money will result in a performance boost she can FEEL.

Oooh that's enough to want to move to Canada !

Well it's my mothers HP pavilion from 2009 I'm not even going to start on what I think of HP website!! !!
The computer is slow to start and and slow to start web browsers and so on but once they are running there is usually not a problem. I figured I'd get the 2gb ram so I end up with four and do a clean installation of windows 7 64bit. it's currently running windows vista 32 bit which is why I asked.

If you're going to spend any money, I'd invest in the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive. She'll love having Windows boot in mere seconds!