£100 would be better spent on...

[kalniel]

..doubling my RAM to 12GB,

or

..buying a small SSD.

Discuss

[scaryjim]

You could spend it on updating your "my system" specs so we don't wonder why you want to pair up 12GB of RAM with an X2 4400+?

Personally I'd go 6GB and an SSD, *unless* you know for a fact that you will be working with very large datasets / image files / etc. that will fully utilise 6GB of physical RAM. So, what's the machine for?

[peterb]

Depends! If you are doing a lot of image work or sound editing, and the PC isd on a lot, I'd probably say the RAM. If you aren't using applications that need all that RAM, and you are concerned about fast boot times and OS response times, then the SSD.

[Moby-Dick]

SSD all the way

[kalniel]

You could spend it on updating your "my system" specs so we don't wonder why you want to pair up 12GB of RAM with an X2 4400+?

I don't like paper launches My system is still a X2 4400 for the moment. When I actually build the new one I'll change it

Personally I'd go 6GB and an SSD, *unless* you know for a fact that you will be working with very large datasets / image files / etc. that will fully utilise 6GB of physical RAM. So, what's the machine for?

Photo manipulation for the most part, some gaming, some game building.

[scaryjim]

I don't like paper launches

Who does

Photo manipulation for the most part, some gaming, some game building.

Then you might actually see the advantages of the extra RAM, tbh. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that image manipulation can consume huge amounts of RAM, particularly when you start playing with complex filters and stuff (see, I know all the technical terms ). And if you mostly do photo manipulation then it's probably worth sacrificing a little bit of general system snappiness.

[Blarte]

night out in town surely ...

[jim]

I managed to use 4GB of RAM for the very first time playing the Civ 5 demo a few days back.

I wouldn't bother buying RAM now though, it's not as if it's hard to retrofit. If you aren't even getting close to 6GB used then the only effect of doubling up will be to reduce overclock headroom.

[kalniel]

I wouldn't bother buying RAM now though, it's not as if it's hard to retrofit. If you aren't even getting close to 6GB used then the only effect of doubling up will be to reduce overclock headroom.

Well it's whether I purchase 3x2gb or 3x4gb from the start really. No real effect on overclocking headroom (might be a few 100mhz lower, but nothing significant)

[redddraggon]

I managed to use 4GB of RAM for the very first time playing the Civ 5 demo a few days back.

I wouldn't bother buying RAM now though, it's not as if it's hard to retrofit. If you aren't even getting close to 6GB used then the only effect of doubling up will be to reduce overclock headroom.

Aye same here - not sure why Civ5 needs so much RAM though, it doesn't seem like that much of a power hungry game

[r5gtt]

As someone else said, SSD all the way.

[Singh400]

+1 on SSD.

[marktime]

Another SSD vote, ebuyer had the 60 GB Vertex 2E on for a fraction over £100 yesterday, but it's gone back up to ~£107 today.

[badass]

Well it's whether I purchase 3x2gb or 3x4gb from the start really. No real effect on overclocking headroom (might be a few 100mhz lower, but nothing significant)

Go 2x4GB, save a little longer and get the SSD as well
Running in triple channel mode makes no difference in most situations and in the few, very rare memory intensive situations, it's not that much of a difference.

[GheeTsar]

Another vote for SSD - particularly for the photo editing - shoving the scratch disk on the SSD can speed up photoshop no end.

[jim]

Well it's whether I purchase 3x2gb or 3x4gb from the start really. No real effect on overclocking headroom (might be a few 100mhz lower, but nothing significant)

Fair enough - I thought when you said doubling up that you already had 6GB and was considering buying another 6GB kit.

I still think SSD though. 4GB modules should come down in price over time, so if you ever want to upgrade to 12GB it will be fairly easy - either add another 6GB or buy 12GB and sell the old kit.

If you start off with an HDD though, it will be much more of a pain to install an SSD. You'll probably end up nuking your windows install which is a pain in the arse.