PC memory question.

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whiteflyer

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I posted last week that I was considering getting a new PC, but as am a rather tight fellow I'm pondering if just whacking in a load more ram might do the job.

My current PC is a Pentium 4 with 512mb Ram, I have looked and can fit 2GB on the motherboard. I know this will help with lightroom, but I don't want to spend £70 on ram and then find I still have to get a new PC.

Advice and comments please.
 
Have you guys bought Lightroom already?
What's the frequency of your CPU?

More RAM is likely to help somewhat, but it won't do exactly wonders.

I have an Athlon 64 3000+ with 1GB of RAM and Lightroom has been pretty slow.
Its output wasn't that great either, so I ditched it after a few days of trying the trial version.
Capture One 4 was a lot faster, output similar, perhaps even better with my D50.
RawTherapee beats them both in quality, imo, but its speed in somewhere in between Capture One 4 and Lightroom, but it's free.
 
If just spent a couple of days sorting out and beefing up my old Dell Dimension....I'm too tight to buy a new one too.

I've upped the memory to the maximum (only 1Gb on this motherboard), added a dual monitor graphics card with 256Mb on board...the old one only had 64Mb and the change is noticeable. Popped in a second DVD writer with all types compatiable. Finally added a second hard drive and partitioned it into 3 (using one as a PS scratch disk as per Les McLeans little tip sheet the other day).

All told it looks like time well spent and money saved. I'm not hearing the frantic disk activity that pervaded the room following every keystroke in PS.

Bob

Forgot to add....bought Kamions 24" monitor a couple of weeks ago to complete the transformation.
 
Hey, i found a similar prob
i got a p4 3.4ghz, 1gb ram amd some cheap ge force graphics card.
i use pspx2 and found it started alright but as i added layers, the comp slowed right down, had a 2 hr google search and decided that the ram isnt enough and my graphics card was using the ram as well supposedly, so virtual constant access to hard drive.ordered 2 gb ram and new graphics card as well today, should arrive end of next week. try looking at the picture filesize after you save it and look at the reccomended ram for ps.if considerably less than 2gb, give it a try
 
What's the specs of your machine Whiteflyer ?

I might have some ram floating about.
 
RAM *CAN* make a huge difference.
My other half had an HP nx6110 laptop, celeron something or other defo over 1GHz tho, and saw some ram in PC world, £30 for 512MB, and it had 256MB in it, running XP home.
It made a massive difference.
 
My Pc specs according to Crucial memory checker

Maximum Memory Capacity: 2048MB
Currently Installed Memory: 512MB
Available Memory Slots: 0
Number of Banks: 2
Dual Channel Support: No
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
CPU Family: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.50GHz Model 2, Stepping 7
CPU Speed: 2490 MHz

Each memory slot can hold DDR PC2700,DDR PC3200,DDR PC4000 with a maximum of 1GB per slot NON-ECC 184-pin DIMM
 
I think peeps, we're getting pretty close to a 2gig standard for all the crap that runs on our machines plus our edit software.
I know Capture NX takes 400mb of ram on a save, I also know my machine runs 250mb of ram doing nothing at all, clearly a 512 stick just doesn't cut the custard in 2008.
Upgrading to max ram on this board (1G) made my edit software very usable where it wasn't before..
 
so i guess your old machine isnt that old from the spec, just stick 2 gb ram and should run faster. i assume it got a decent graphics card, if not upgrade that as well and you should be flying.
 
Looks like more RAM will be the way to go then. Just had a look in the Scan site :
2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select DDR PC3200 (400), 184 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 3-3-3-8 £73.31 Inc VAT

They are only 3 miles up the road so might call in one day next week.
 
69.99 from amazon, they the ones i ordered:thumbs:
 
How much better is pc 4000, I mean you might aswell go the full monty if its only a few extra quid and worthwhile ?
 
fletch5 said:
so i guess your old machine isnt that old from the spec, just stick 2 gb ram and should run faster. i assume it got a decent graphics card, if not upgrade that as well and you should be flying.
Click to expand...

ATI Radeon™ 7500 64MB


joxby said:
How much better is pc 4000, I mean you might aswell go the full monty if its only a few extra quid and worthwhile ?
Click to expand...

PC 4000 looks to be double the price of PC 3200 :eek:



I wait till next week, because 6 numbers tomorrow means I'll be getting that £16K Mac mentioned in another thread :lol:
 
2GB RAM does normally do the trick, but then again. It is not always down to short RAM for the slowness. Spyware can make computers run slow, believe it or not. As can loads on your HDD that you don't need

:thumbs:
Tony
 
that looks a little on the small side from what i seen. i ordered a inno3d geforce 7600 512mb, which i think was about £50. but they do do a 256mb version, but wait and get a reply from someone a bit more in the know. i remember seeing someone suggested no lower than 128mb, but dont quote me on that!!
 
Well for £39 I can get a 512MB ATI Radeon X1650 Pro, AGP 8x, Mem 800 MHz, GDDR2, GPU 600 MHz, D-Sub/DVI/HDTV. So may as well get that too, would help with Flight Sim 2004 :lol:
 
that hsould keep it usable for the next month or so i would think, or at least till the next auto update!!!!
 
I've just installed a G-Force 6200 with 256Mb running at 400MHz with dual DVI, VGA and TV out.

Compared to what it replaced, it's a big improvement but everything is relative eh?

Bob
 
what did you have bob?
 
Assuming you are running XP so, take a look at this site which gives you advice as to which background services you may be able to turn off

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

The increased RAM will certainly help and is one of the only ways it is possible to improve the performance noticeably and at reasonable cost.

Also are you running an AGP graphics card or onboard graphics?
 
Moving from 512MB to 2GB will make a significant difference while editing photos. The choice between PC3200 etc all depends on the FSB of your CPU
 
Just noted the ATI 7500 in an earlier post.

That is available in either pci or AGP. Can you chsck which verson.

AGP is better.

Then you should be able to update to a 256Mb GFX card no problem or even 512 at very reasonable cost

http://www.autdirect.co.uk/acatalog/ATI.html
 
whiteflyer said:
Looks like more RAM will be the way to go then. Just had a look in the Scan site :
2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select DDR PC3200 (400), 184 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 3-3-3-8 £73.31 Inc VAT

They are only 3 miles up the road so might call in one day next week.
Click to expand...

I've a similar spec CPU (P4 2.553) with 1.5GB and that's plenty fast enough. Occasionally I have to wait when processing filters on large files (most of mine after post-processing are about 160MB PSDs) but nothing that makes my creative flow :lol: unpleasant.

Personally I'd avoid the Corsair value stuff - myself and a colleague of mine have both built 2nd PCs with it and we both had failures within a couple of months of installing it.

I'd go with www.crucial.com/uk any day - don't know what I was thinking using another brand :)
 
Just orderd 2GB from Crucial, so should be a little better by next weekend. I'll get a new Graphic Card too, I think.
 
Got a graphic card this afternoon, and the darn thing is faulty, with little green squares covering the screen. Tried latest driver and the like but no such luck.:thumbsdown:

I'll take it back on Monday and ask for my money back. Also having a read around the web, it should not make any difference what type of card you have for lightroom or photoshop as these are not 3D programs and do not use the card graphics engine. So if I get my money back I stick with what I have.
 
whiteflyer said:
Got a graphic card this afternoon, and the darn thing is faulty, with little green squares covering the screen. Tried latest driver and the like but no such luck.:thumbsdown:
Click to expand...

Have you thought about ditching digital and going back to film? :D
 
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