physical RAM or USB RAM for vista ?

[rajeevsharma8888]

Hi,i have intel P4, 845 GBV MOBO and 768 MB sd ram (512+256).i run vista ultimate, so it's a bit slow.Want to use it for office (Tally, net browsing, using word that's it !)Was thinking of buying 1 GB SD RAM, but that's so costly !So thought of selling old stuff and buying new in exchange, will cost about Rs. 3500 approx !Than thought, why not go for 2 GB pendrive for Rs. 400.and use it as ram (Vista ready boost), will save me money,but just wanna know,will 2 GB pendrive ram, be faster than physical 1 GB ram !Also what's the latest, n cheapest price for 2 GB pendrive !Don't mind the shape, 'coz that will remain stuck at the back of PC !waitn for reply's

 

[Motorazor143]

hey buddy!! ready boost wont effect ur systems performance like u r expecting..there is a lot of test conducted to see weather ready boost for vista really works..and all tests have come to a conclusion that it doesn't make much difference, infact some test say it doesn't make any difference at all...so, physical Ram is always a better option.and yes!! u wont get a gr8 performance for Vista by just upgrading the RAM..U also need to have a decent onboard or dedicated graphics card for Vista so that all the eye candy works smoothly..i dont think Intel 845 is gonna serve u well for that matter.well, and yes..spending 3500 Rs for a SD RAM is not a wise idea to Just run vista..u can easily assemble a CPU with 2 GB RAM for 12k......cheapest 2 GB pendrive shud come for around 360 RS(Kingston) in Nehru place Delhi

 

[DrSRQ]

It's not just "SPACE" which matters for something to work as RAM...It must have cool "CLOCK SPEED" (MHz) faster the clock speed better is the performance and then what matters is size of RAM (MBs/GBs)...then comes READ/WRITE speed...Pen Drives have pathetic data transfer rate!!!! I don't think Pen Driver will ever be able to replace real RAM.Do you know something called PAGE FILES? System writes files in HDD when Its low on RAM...did you ever notice how slow system becomes when it's reading writing data ON HDD to add RAMs space

 

[Karan]

You have to first understand just what exactly readyboost is, basically it doesn't work as an "add-on" to the RAM in any way at all, Vista stores a cache of all the most often used softwares, DLLs and even some part of the page file on the readyboost drive, basically accessing them on a HDD is slow because the HDD that has to seek the data and then transfer it to the RAM, that is where the readyboost comes in, Since the USB drive isn't a HDD the seek time very fast as compared to the HDD, but no where near the speed of actual RAM, thus boosting the performance to some extent. You will also need USB 2.0 for this, which I don't think the 845 chipset supports(I may be wrong though). Please verify this first before buying it or vista simply won't accept the USB drive as fast enough.Well sadly your PC config will not be able to give you an experience of smoothness when running Vista even with 1GB of RAM with readyboost. The processor and the rest of the components too have to be capable of keeping up with the demands of the OS. I would suggest you stay with XP till you are able to upgrade to a better spec config.

 

[SnakeDoctor]

You have to first understand just what exactly readyboost is, basically it doesn't work as an "add-on" to the RAM in any way at all, Vista stores a cache of all the most often used softwares, DLLs and even some part of the page file on the readyboost drive, basically accessing them on a HDD is slow because the HDD that has to seek the data and then transfer it to the RAM, that is where the readyboost comes in, Since the USB drive isn't a HDD the seek time very fast as compared to the HDD, but no where near the speed of actual RAM, thus boosting the performance to some extent. You will also need USB 2.0 for this, which I don't think the 845 chipset supports(I may be wrong though). Please verify this first before buying it or vista simply won't accept the USB drive as fast enough.

Well sadly your PC config will not be able to give you an experience of smoothness when running Vista even with 1GB of RAM with readyboost. The processor and the rest of the components too have to be capable of keeping up with the demands of the OS. I would suggest you stay with XP till you are able to upgrade to a better spec config.
+1. Good stuff.

 

[viralbug]

my advice is to use windows xp.

 

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[Sushubh]

on a p4, stick with windows xp...