Upgrades, Upgrades...

[Bituser]

I have a cheapie laptop as its all I can really afford. Its cheap, but it does what I want it to do.

I want to upgrade it to max out its specs.

The laptop I have is a Toshiba Satellite Pro L300 Pslb1a
I currently have 3gb RAM and a 120gb HDD.
I was looking at upgrading the RAM to 4gb and the hdd to 500gb.

Tell me what you think.

Heres the RAM I was looking at:
APACER 2GB Sodimm DDR2 667Mhz SO-DIMM, 200-Pin PC2-5300 CL5 - Notebook Memory - Elive.co.nz

and here's the HDD ( I was looking at an 8mb cache and 5400rpm, but I guess this will give me more grunt):
SEAGATE MOMENTUS 7200.4 500GB SATA 3GBS 16MB | NotebookCity – Online Computer Store


If you think I can go better, then tell me. Will that ram work in my laptop? I came here seeking answers as I am on 56k internet at the moment and it takes way to long to load pages. Do you think any of this is worth it?

Its for Web Developement.
Photoshop and coding mainly.:huh:

 

[MacGyvr]

To find 100% compatible memory, run the online scanner at RAM Memory Upgrade: Dell, Mac, Apple, HP, Compaq. USB drives, flash cards, SSD at Crucial.com

A hard drive is pretty much a hard drive, especially where laptop drives are concerned.

 

[Bituser]

Thankyou for your reply. Do you think that I will notice much more speed out of another gb of RAM? I have just installed 64 bit windows 7 home premium, so I can utilize the entire 4gb. Is bigger better when it comes to 3 - 4gb of ram?

 

[MacGyvr]

As far as I have found, the "sweet spot" with Windows 7 is actually at 2 GB. I don't believe you see a significant performance increase going above that point. Notice I said "significant"....I think you will see a bit, but not a great deal. The additional memory will only really come into play if you are running multiple applications at the same time.

 

[Pusspa]

when i looked at getting a higher speed hard drive i see it raises the temp of the laptop, so be aware if you have problems with temps now.

 

[Bituser]

As far as I have found, the "sweet spot" with Windows 7 is actually at 2 GB. I don't believe you see a significant performance increase going above that point. Notice I said "significant"....I think you will see a bit, but not a great deal. The additional memory will only really come into play if you are running multiple applications at the same time.

I think I may just go for the hdd then. Thanks for your help.

p.s: your avatars nauseating .

 

[MoInSTL]

You may see more of an improvement going from a 5400 HDD to a 7200 HDD since you said you will be running large apps like Photoshop. Boot times will be a little faster too. The 7200 will generate a bit more heat but battery life is negligible. You will see more of a performance gain on load times and less once working in the program. Regardless of the way you go, the outer side of a HDD is faster, so load Photoshop before everything else.

I am running Home Premium x64 on my laptop too with 4GB of RAM and 500GB, 7200 Seagate and my page file is very small, but I am not running a huge program like Photoshop. If you can afford it, add the extra gig. RAM is so much faster than having to swap out to a HDD. You can play around with your page file size to compensate if you decide not to add more RAM.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi all
I doubt really if you would see a huge difference in performance on a laptop upping the RAM from 3GB to 4GB especially if you aren't running virtual machines. Even Game playing tends to be more CPU intensive so here you won't get much if any of an improvement either --especially as the video card in the laptop will be integrated into the motherboard.

Changing from 32 to 64 bit OS won't buy you anything either apart from the fact you can run 64 bit applications which will become more mainstream now.

For the moment your best bet would be to IMPROVE the HDD -- SLOW DISKS KILL ANY SYSTEM FROM THE FASTEST PROCESSOR down to a slow old Pentium II machine.

A lot of people get the latest Mobo, Quad CPU etc and then skimp on the HDD's.

For HOME computing where most stuff really is "I/O" bound the BEST you can do is fit the fastest disks you can afford -- 7200 rpm minimum with a BIG cqche.

You will be amazed an the IMMEDIATE improvement this will bring even to a tired old sluggish machine.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[housry23]

I agree about everyone saying to get the 7200RPM HDD with the biggest cache you can find. I disagree with the people saying to stick with 3GB of RAM. If you are using memory intensive apps like Photoshop and doing memory intensive projects like photo editing, I would recommend the extra gig of RAM. Most home users can get away with 2 or 3GB of RAM, but this guy seems to be using memory intensive programs which require more memory. Also, most laptops have integrated graphics which will eat up memory as well, so if you have more memory that means more will be available to the OS and programs and the page file will be smaller which is always a plus speed wise. It is your choice man, but I would upgrade the HDD first and if it still seems to be a little slow when running Photoshop I would splurge for the extra memory. I am not discrediting anyones answer, just giving my opinion.