# How much RAM should I buy?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ram-should-i-buy/516841>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 8, 2009, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ram-should-i-buy/516841 "2009-11-08T21:09:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Fir\_na\_tine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fir\_na\_tine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fir_na_tine)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ram-should-i-buy/516841/21 "2009-11-10T00:10:12Z")

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A “beater”?, “Ancient”?, “worth $50.?”

Now my wife applies all of those terms to me from time to time but not to the computer!

“Slower” to me is just that. A visible (but not measured) slowdown in response time to basic functions (not internet download time). I work with photos a lot and that’s probably 90% of what’s saved on the hard drive.

I ran the [Crucial.com](http://Crucial.com) scan mentioned above and it said that I have 1 512MB DDR PC2100 installed and recommended one more. It notes that “each memory slot can hold DDR PC2700, DDR PC3200 with a maximum of 512MB per slot”.

I will run disk defrag and report back.

Amazing the resources available at the Dope!

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**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ram-should-i-buy/516841/22 "2009-11-10T05:20:02Z")

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> [@HorseloverFat](#):
>
> I support a lot of machines with “just” 512 and they really dont hit the paging file that often.

People forget than RAM isn’t used just for programs, but also caching the disk (making a RAMDISK where frequently used files are placed).

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