More RAM vs. SSD for improved performance?

[Dent1]

Wow, quite a debate I've started. Thanks for all the help, guys.

Re: replacing RAM, it actually has only one RAM slot according to the Acer data sheet. Someone mentioned in another thread that this probably meant there was a 4GB stick in there and the other 2GB was on the CPU, or something?

If so, I could replace the 4GB with an 8GB for 10GB overall.

I will continue to look into SSD, though with this particular laptop it would have to be externally connected.

I had a look at the data sheet, I believe this laptop has only 4GB of ram, can't see any evidence of an additional 2GB anywhere.

4GB of ram isn't a lot these days, I had a look at Cubase's website and 2GB is the minimum requirement. This is just to launch the app and use its basic operation without crashing and with a mediocre experience. I would think the recommended requirements is about 4GB which would put your system at the threshold already. If you're using other music production applications simultaneously 4GB is nowhere near enough. I would recommend upgrading to 8GB minimum. The more RAM you can fit into that single slot the better.

The RAM upgrade is your main priority as it will decrease thrashing from the HDD, this by proxy would also improve HDD performance too.

SDD would generally improve performance as well, boot times, application loading times general navigation snappiness when the OS and apps are installed directly onto the SSD. But productivity probably won't increase as music files are not very big. Where SSDs benefit most is in heavy read/write situations which isn't a normal scenario for music production. Although if money suffices I would recommend a SSD as a secondary priority.

PC World staff on the ground floor are sales people, they are not technicians, their job is to sell you computers to meet targets. Similarly a guy in a car showroom isn't a mechanic, he only knows enough to sell cars to meet a target. Technical support is ranked in priority in all sectors. If you phone BT they will pass you onto a sales person, if he can't help, you'll get to 1st line support, then 2nd line support, then 3rd line support. Then hopefully your issue gets solved.

 

[mitya]

@Dent 1 - sorry, I managed to link to the wrong version of the laptop. Here's the correct data sheet - 6gb confirmed.

http://www.acer.co.uk/ac/en/GB/content/model-datasheet/NX.MD2EK.001

End music files are small, but not necessarily during the process of production when you're dealing with WAV files, instruments etc.

@RCoon - point taken (and @Dent1) re: PC World staff being salespeople, makes sense, really. Still, it does sort of leave you with no option but your own hard research when you want to know more technical details.

Continued thanks.

 

[RCoon]

Sorry I didn't have chance to find you some laptops to consider, too busy trying to track down this Llama with serious substance abuse issues so I can shoot it and get on with my day.

 

[mitya]

Surely, "get him a place at a rehab centre"?

 

[RCoon]

Surely, "get him a place at a rehab centre"?

Sorry, specifically there's a broken hand dryer mounted directly opposite the wall I sit at, my office is next to a set of toilets, and the hand dryer sounds horribly horribly broken (like a tortured al paca). I would go in there and blow(no pun intended) the thing to kingdom come, but it's a women's toilets.

 

[jcgeny]

according to corsair you can use 8 Go sticks . you setup should be 2 Go + 4 Go , normaly you should go up to 16 Go . i wonder where they find some 12 Go stick ?

have a look at http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.aspx?model=Aspire V5-552P&Cat=RAM or http://www.crucial.com/eu/store/listparts.aspx?model=Aspire V5-552P&Cat=RAM

so 65 or 130 and 110 pounds for ram and ssd ;']

 

[jcgeny]

64-bit does not need twice the amount of RAM, please don't give bad advice.

Most Windows 7 64-bit systems are fine with 4 GB. I'd say 6-8 GB is ideal for most users, rather spend the money on other upgrades like SSD or faster GPU (if you game).

c:\windows\system32 is 3.4 Go
C:\Windows\SysWOW64 is 1.2 Go
C:\users is 1.3 Go
i am only surfing with tv-news in background and use 3 Go

if i had only 4 Go then in fact i would have no ram in 32 bit because of rom and reserved space ; with 64 bit it would be nearly the same
while with 8 Go there is 4Go and can open a lot of apps and webpages

 

[BiggieShady]

c:\windows\system32 is 3.4 Go
C:\Windows\SysWOW64 is 1.2 Go
C:\users is 1.3 Go
i am only surfing with tv-news in background and use 3 Go

The fact that 64 bit binary executable/DLL is larger than 32 bit one built from the same source code has almost nothing to do with application memory use in runtime.

if i had only 4 Go then in fact i would have no ram in 32 bit because of rom and reserved space ; with 64 bit it would be nearly the same while with 8 Go there is 4Go and can open a lot of apps and webpages

How much more memory is 64 bit OS capable of addressing compared to 32 bit OS is completely different matter.
The point is that extra memory is not required for 64 bit OS, only usable.

 

[W1zzard]

why would you open 30 browser tabs at the same time? multi-monitor wall with porn streams?

 

[mitya]

@RCoon - hopefully in the interests of decency the llama is also female, then.

Came across this 14":

http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/s-series/s440/?sb=:000000F0:000003B0:#customize

Yes it's £175 more than the Acer I'm considering, but is it £175 better? Seems quite nice. Key differences:

- A10 5757M vs. i5 4200U (old i5?)
- 6gb vs. 8gb (extra cost for 8gb)
- Radeon 8650G vs. Radeon 8670M 2gb

Lenovo seem a little lazy on more technical details, e.g.

- one RAM slot or two?
- HD transfer rate / cache?
- PCIe slot?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Honestly depends on what you are doing. Id probably chose an SSD first, but having enough RAM for the tasks you do matters as well. SSD can load things quickly, but if you don't have enough RAM to actually run those programs, what the hell is the point?

 

[RCoon]

@RCoon - hopefully in the interests of decency the llama is also female, then.

Came across this 14":

http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/s-series/s440/?sb=:000000F0:000003B0:#customize

Yes it's £175 more than the Acer I'm considering, but is it £175 better? Seems quite nice. Key differences:

- A10 5757M vs. i5 4200U (old i5?)
- 6gb vs. 8gb (extra cost for 8gb)
- Radeon 8650G vs. Radeon 8670M 2gb

Lenovo seem a little lazy on more technical details, e.g.

- one RAM slot or two?
- HD transfer rate / cache?
- PCIe slot?

i5 4200U is far more powerful than the A10 in terms of raw processing power. 8GB tells me it's definitely 2 memory slots, and the fact the i5 has a DEDICATED gpu is VERY VERY nice. Totally worth the £175 IMO.
Almost 90% of all laptop HDD's are 5400RPM, so i recommend buying an SSD or a Scorpio Black (7200RPM 2.5" HDD). Lenovos are also far better built than Acer's which in the UK are typically cheaply made.

 

[mitya]

@RCoon - thanks. Does it being an older version of the i5 matter? Sites like PCSpecialist enforce major jumps in price if you go from, say, a last-gen i5 to a current one, so I guess the newer ones must be quite a bit better?

Another difference is faster RAM (1600 vs. 1333), though I'm told RAM speed differences (particularly as small as this difference) are not normally noticeable.

@MxPhenom 216 - thanks for the info.

 

[RCoon]

@RCoon - thanks. Does it being an older version of the i5 matter? Sites like PCSpecialist enforce major jumps in price if you go from, say, a last-gen i5 to a current one, so I guess the newer ones must be quite a bit better?

Another difference is faster RAM (1600 vs. 1333), though I'm told RAM speed differences (particularly as small as this difference) are not normally noticeable.

@MxPhenom 216 - thanks for the info.

performance difference between previous gen and current gen is anywhere between 5-15% in terms of identically placed processor in lineups (e.g. 3570K vs 4670K)
RAM makes all of 1-2% difference in gaming situtions, though other programs/apps may be more RAM orientated (photoshop for example, eats RAM alive). RAM speed doesn't make a whole lot of difference for Sibelius/Cubase/Reason. Processing power is everything, especially when compiling.

 

[mitya]

Aha, thanks, got it. I see now why there's such a price jump between processor generations.

I note Game Debate ranks the two GPUs in question (Radeon 8650g vs. Radeon 8670m) the same, even though the latter has 2gb dedicated memory. This suggests to me the latter should be markedly better no!?

http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/inde...97&compare=radeon-hd-8650g-vs-radeon-hd-8670m

I think in the end I'll just buy an Etch-a-Sketch

 

[RCoon]

I'll just buy an Etch-a-Sketch

I cannot stress enough how much hassle this will save you, and how much happier your overall life experience will be.

As for dedicated GPU's, the 8650g I believe is an iGPU on the processor, whereas the 8670m is an actual dedicated GPU. the 2GB dediacted memory will be better than the iGPU option, as it's not stealing from your laptop memory like the 8650g is. In general the 8670m is faster in every situation, that game-debate website is not very good at comparing things it seems.

 

[jcgeny]

why would you open 30 browser tabs at the same time? multi-monitor wall with porn streams?

i read a lot but porn is not my kind : only fresh-meat for my playboy'$ mansions ;']

The fact that 64 bit binary executable/DLL is larger than 32 bit one built from the same source code has almost nothing to do with application memory use in runtime.
How much more memory is 64 bit OS capable of addressing compared to 32 bit OS is completely different matter.
The point is that extra memory is not required for 64 bit OS, only usable.

*no but that explains 64 bit uses more ram compared to 32 bit
* i talk about 4Go total ram , windows 64 bit can use few hundred of Mo between 3 and 4 Go , it s the rom area for cards and ram aperture
with 32bit os not a Mo can be use , even when using 3Go/1Go scheme instead of 2x2Go

to get back in topic i found a review and your pc has 2 memory slots

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-V5-552PG-X809-Notebook.101315.0.html

16 G0 [or only 12 ...] of ram for 130 Pounds and may be a toshiba 512 Go for 330 Euros like at amazon : http://www.amazon.fr/Toshiba-HDTS251EZSTA-Disque-interne-Portable/dp/B00C29EY7M/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1390474998&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba ssd 512

plus a box/station to plug your old hd [and may be an other one later] with usb2 or 3 and your done

 

[Ricardo Picozzi]

Guys... I'm in the same situation. What should I do... install 16Gb of memory or install a SSD drive?
Today I have a MacBook Pro with rocessor 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 / 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 / Running OS X 10.9.4 (latest).
This Mac is used basically to navigate o nteh WEB, Download movies, and monstly use iPhoto to make albuns and sent it to Apple to print them, plus some Word and PowerPoint editing. No more than that. I feel sometimes, the systems gets slow...so I relaly don't know if iPhoto demands more memory.. upgrade from 8Gb t o16gb or add an SSD, but as I understood, adding an SSD I will loose the optical drive. thanks for help/adivce.

 

[OneMoar]

SDD no question about it

 

[RealNeil]

Guys... I'm in the same situation. What should I do... install 16Gb of memory or install a SSD drive?
Today I have a MacBook Pro with rocessor 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7 / 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 / Running OS X 10.9.4 (latest).
This Mac is used basically to navigate o nteh WEB, Download movies, and monstly use iPhoto to make albuns and sent it to Apple to print them, plus some Word and PowerPoint editing. No more than that. I feel sometimes, the systems gets slow...so I relaly don't know if iPhoto demands more memory.. upgrade from 8Gb t o16gb or add an SSD, but as I understood, adding an SSD I will loose the optical drive. thanks for help/adivce.

SSD will boost that Mac faster than more RAM will. I installed a 480GB SSD into my son's Macbook Pro and removed the HDD entirely. The HDD that was inside is now in a portable case and the SSD went into the same place that the HDD was.

It speeded his machine up a lot.

 

[Phillip.Phillip]

Buy a faster ssd. Will open word and iPhoto in like one second. Also iPhoto doesn't need more than 6 gb of ram

 

[yehoudin]

hey
ssd loads applications fastser. hmm
i got a 2.4ghz core duo 4gb imac (mid2007). i swithced from osx 10.6.8. to 10.11
loading apps like mail was fast in 10.6.8, now i takes much longer. but the hdd is the same. why would my hdd slow down with new OS?

 

[RealNeil]

hey
ssd loads applications fastser. hmm
i got a 2.4ghz core duo 4gb imac (mid2007). i swithced from osx 10.6.8. to 10.11
loading apps like mail was fast in 10.6.8, now i takes much longer. but the hdd is the same. why would my hdd slow down with new OS?

The new OS is using more of the PC's resources.

 

[eidairaman1]

The new OS is using more of the PC's resources.

HDD could be running out of space. MacOS is prone to Other files

 

[ASOT]

More ram doesn't improve performance but ssd does..so at least 8gb of ram is enough for gaming/editing,etc