First Things First: Upgrade Your RAM
From ZDNet Reviews & Solutions
January 17, 2002

One of the most common questions about computing is whether to upgrade components and, if so, which ones. If your system is truly, completely outdated, we recommend that you replace it entirely. On the other hand, if it's only a year or so old and doesn't have quite enough zip, the best way to improve your performance is to add more random access memory (RAM).

Leo's guest today is Lulit Bezuayehu, lab manager at PC Computing magazine, who shares the benefits of upgrading RAM and demonstrates just how it's done.

RAM is used by your computer to store all data that has to be processed by the CPU. Since the data contained in documents, spreadsheets, graphics, or any type of file must be stored in RAM before the processor can manipulate that data, the amount of available RAM affects how quickly your computer can perform tasks. Therefore, you can never have too much RAM.

According to PC Computing, doubling the RAM in a system immediately boosts overall managerial productivity by 38 percent and administrative productivity by 16 percent. It pays for itself in just over a day for managers and in about five days for administrative workers.

Best of all, memory prices are at an all-time low and falling.

Before buying more RAM, you need to check the type of RAM your computer uses, and the maximum amount that your system can handle. To determine how much memory you need, consider the types of tasks that you perform on your computer on a regular basis. Graphics-based tasks and number-crunching (such as queries to a database or calculation in a spreadsheet) will require more RAM than other tasks.

The idea of opening up a computer's case and fiddling around with its components might cause a beginning user to cringe, but this is one of the easiest upgrades you can do. You just have to turn the system off, ground yourself, open the case, and install the new RAM.

To learn more about ram memory, or to purchase a ram memory upgrade, please visit Crucial Technologies by clicking the link below.