How Much RAM

[GrouchoBarx]

I am going to upgrade an older Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. P55A-UD3 to Win7. I mostly use it as an email and media server cpu. It currently has 2GB RAM, but will support up to 16GB. Any thoughts on how much RAM I should install?

 

[Andrew Murdoch]

Win 7, 4gb is ok, 8gb is better. For what you want to use, 4gb is fine.

 

[i7Baby]

These days 8GB is the norm.

Your mobo - http://www.gigabyte.com.au/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3439#sp says
"4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR3 2200/1600/1333/1066/800 MHz memory modules
Support for non-ECC memory modules
Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
Go to GIGABYTE's website for the latest memory support list."

So I'd get 2 x 4gb 1600 1.5v eg http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31600c9d8gab

 

[photonboy]

*Please specify what you mean by "server"... to play videos?

Not sure 8GB is needed to upgrade a computer for basic tasks.

My dad's laptop only has 2GB and it runs quite well. He uses it only for e-mail and browsing though we've streamed HD content both through wi-fi and HDMI from the internal HDD. I've used it myself and it's not much different from my 16GB gaming rig.

4GB might be faster but hard to say since this is pretty basic. It's not quite clear exactly how you are using it, and how often. It wasn't until I opened a lot of TABS and started multi-tasking that I noticed a slow-down. Again though, I booted up and used a web browser just like my gaming rig. Only boot times were different.

An SSD might be something else to consider. That made a noticeable difference though the laptop HDD was quite slow.

Again, I'll probably get some flak but for pretty light usage I'm not sure more system memory will be noticeable.

Options:
1) Upgrade to Windows 10 (free) once released.
2) Upgrade to 4GB. I think 8GB is a waste of money for this use.
*I have 16GB of DDR3 memory. I booted up my system, checked Outlook e-mail and have about ten tabs open in Firefox and have 2.7GB used. 500MB of that is Firefox. 56MB is Battlenet (Diablo 3). 76MB is the NVidia Control Panel (really NVidia?).
3) Buy an SSD and clone with Machrium Reflect or similar (see pcpartpicker). Once done make a backup Image such as Acronis True Image (SSD to HDD).

You might even find Windows 10 is snappier with the same 2GB of memory though I'm not certain. I thought I read somewhere it was being optimized to use slightly less system memory.

 

[GrouchoBarx]

Thanks for all the answers!

photonboy, I will be serving video and audio mainly. I do use this comuter for email and such and as a backup device for my main cpu. I am also getting a 500Gb SSD to replace the 240GB SSD in my main CPU. I will be installing WIn7 on the 240SSD as a system drive. THat will allow me to keep the handful of WinXP apps that don't run on Win7. I will simply swap the boot drive in bios when I want to access WinXP stuff.



It looks like I will go ahead and do a 2x4Gb as suggested by i7Baby. It may be overkill as suggested, but it's not so pricey. And I do have music and video software installed on this computer, so it can't hurt.


Thanks again!