Overall performance: 2g ram vs. 4g ram
 

can someone educate me why a computer with 4gb ram (Winxp) seems to be much faster than one with 2gb ram? but running winxp can never go pass 1gb ram of usage.:confused:

The more the better, always?

I was using 2x2GB on a AMD 7850 PC running XP. I took one of the 2GB stick out and put it in a new PC and didn't notice any performance difference at all. (whether I am playing games or having 30 firefox browser opens)

XP will use up to 3GB, assuming it's a 32 bit version.

his question above is IF there is a performance difference or just his imagination...

does it only apply to slow cpu and win7/vista?

I just tested it on a fujitsu P-series...it seems to be quite obviously (or it really could be my imagination?)

I would guess there's so much junk running in the background, that being allowed the extra 1GB (as XP is limited to 3) makes a noticeable difference in speed?

The difference between XP and vista/w7 is prefetch and superfetch respectively.

In XP it will try to keep your ram as free as possible but will organize your HDD to launch your most use programs. In W7, superfetch is used, what it does is it keeps your most used programs in the ram available. So the more ram you have, the faster it'll be.

Off the top of my head, I haven't read the article in a long time that contains the info...so YMMV