Laptop Upgrade

Russy

Russy

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Russ
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So for image processing I use a Dell Latitude e6500 which from what I remember has the following

2Gb RAM, 150Gb SATA drive and 2.4 Ghz P8600

As it's a company laptop and I don't really want to buy a whole new unit I'm thinking of upgrading it. What do you think would be most beneficial? In my opinion an SSD drive would have the biggest performance increase a long with doubling the RAM but would it be worth doing anything else?
 
2Gb RAM is right on the edge of usability for processing images (or using Office).
If your disk light is on most of the time then you have most likely already exceeded the 2Gb and it is paging virtual memory to disc; which is painfully slow. Bung in RAM to take it to 4Gb and you should notice a huge difference.

You don't mention the OS - but a couple of years ago my work laptop disc died and we took the opportunity to upgrade from XP (32 bit) to Windows 7 64 bit - nothing else changed, including the 4Gb RAM.
The difference was staggering - it was a proper quantum leap in performance.
If you aren't at 64-bit yet and can stomach rebuilding your applications from scratch then do it.

In order of priority...
1) at least 4Gb of RAM
2) 64 bit OS
3) SSD
 
From what I remember it's 64-bit but not 100%. If it's 32-bit I know the architecture supports 64 so I'll do that before the upgrade as a 32-bit OS won't understand more than 3.2GB memory
 
Russy said:
From what I remember it's 64-bit but not 100%. If it's 32-bit I know the architecture supports 64 so I'll do that before the upgrade as a 32-bit OS won't understand more than 3.2GB memory
Click to expand...

Yup - but that extra 1Gb (and a bit) will make a heck of a difference to the way your laptop handles - like I said, 2Gb is right on the edge of usability.
Even if you do nothing else, add more RAM.
 
Okay cheers Duncan, I'll see what difference it makes
 
RAM will make a big difference as will moving to an SSD but at a greater cost a 128GB SSD will cost £100 ish and you will need a swapover kit, USB cable and caddy and SW. As others have said W7 64bit if the Hware will take it.

Issue with Ram will be you will likely only have 1 slot for expansion, maybe 2 (2x1gb installed) therefore to go to 4gb you will need to take them both out and replace 2x2gb also your laptop may not support a 4gb piece, check out crucial memory web site.

just checked and will support up to 2x4gb

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Latitude E6500&Cat=RAM
 
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Just ordered 2x2Gb as there's a big hike in price (almost 3 times) to go up to 2x4Gb.

£34.99 for new Crucial from eBay with a 90-day warranty, seems decent enough. I'll report back once I've tested it
 
the hardware should take 64bit OS, i had an E series latitude until last year and ran 7-64 bit no problems.

depending if you need/use the optical drive you can rip it out and run a second drive in a caddy (i.e. boot drive SSD and a larger mechanical storage drive) like so..


Old Vertex Rehomed by neilgates, on Flickr
 
Russy said:
Just ordered 2x2Gb as there's a big hike in price (almost 3 times) to go up to 2x4Gb.

£34.99 for new Crucial from eBay with a 90-day warranty, seems decent enough. I'll report back once I've tested it
Click to expand...

be carefull of ebay could be fakes.
also lifetime warranty if bought direct from crucial i believe.
 
Okay so 4Gb fitted without issue. It's a little faster but not a huge amount. Turns out I'm still running a 32-bit OS so rather than wipe it for 64-bit and do it again for the SSD, I'm gonna get the SSD drive and do it in one hit. If that doesn't work then I'll eBay the lot and buy my own one :-D
 
Russy said:
Okay so 4Gb fitted without issue. It's a little faster but not a huge amount. Turns out I'm still running a 32-bit OS so rather than wipe it for 64-bit and do it again for the SSD, I'm gonna get the SSD drive and do it in one hit. If that doesn't work then I'll eBay the lot and buy my own one :-D
Click to expand...

64 bit will give a bit more but the laptop is the choke point as well its a slow processor and slow architecture as its geared towards mobile/battery power. An SSD will make it as good as it will get for that era. Buying a new laptop wont take your performance foreward in leaps and bounds. To be honest a cheap desktop PC with 8gb and a nice fast processor is best for editing.
 
Mr Bump said:
64 bit will give a bit more but the laptop is the choke point as well its a slow processor and slow architecture as its geared towards mobile/battery power. An SSD will make it as good as it will get for that era. Buying a new laptop wont take your performance forward in leaps and bounds. To be honest a cheap desktop PC with 8gb and a nice fast processor is best for editing.
Click to expand...

True, but you can't really sit a desktop on your lap ;)
 
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