Readyboost - For or Against?

Fire cat

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Hey guys,
I just wanted to know what you though of Readyboost. I've got a 8GB SD card, readyboost compatible, and I was wondering if it was worth using readyboost.

Thanks Guys!
Fire Cat
 

yodap

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It's my understanding that it doesn't do much for you if you have 2 gig or more of ram.

Good question though.
 

Nibiru2012

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It's my understanding that it doesn't do much for you if you have 2 gig or more of ram.

Good question though.
I agree with Yodap! I currently have 4GB of Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC8500 1066MHz RAM @ 5 5 5 15 settings.

Adding 2 more 1GB sticks of Mushkin RAM tonight when they get here in the mail. Couldn't pass up the deal I found on eBay which was $50 total for both sticks including PCMark's 3DMark test suite.

ReadyBoost is really for those with less than 2GB of RAM.
 

Fire cat

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Thanks guys!
I think I am going to use readyboost on my windows 7 notebook which currently has 1 GB, as I really can't afford the 70$ to upgrade to 2GB.

Thanks again,
Fire Cat
 

catilley1092

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Does it cost that much for 1more GB of RAM? I got a 4GB RAM kit from Crucial a few months ago. You should check around on eBay, as $70 sounds kind of high. Do you have one or two slots? On this laptop, I have two slots, but the main slot has a 2GB DDR2 RAM stick in it, and that's the max my MOBO will handle. Belarc reports that my second slot is empty, but it would do no good to add more. If I could, I would. Still, $70 for a 2GB stick sounds high, unless you have DDR3 RAM, that does cost more. Keep searching, you'll find a better deal. 1-800-4MEMORY has excellent deals. Try them.
 

Nibiru2012

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Newegg has SO-DIMM 2GB oaptop memory in DDR3 starting at $53.99 and up to $59.99. Some with free shipping too.

DDR2 starts at $47.99 and goes up to $59.99
 

catilley1092

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I think that actually having more RAM is far better than ReadyBoost is. I had it installed on a laptop that only supported 1GB RAM. This man who knows a lot more than I about computer hardware set it up for me. To be honest, it wasn't worth the bother. I did get a really good Kingston thumb drive out of it, but that was it. Luckily, he's a friend of mine, and only charged me for the thumb drive. Fire Cat, honestly, finding another RAM stick is a better choice, and RAM prices are at an all time low. I'm certain that you'll be far more satisfied. Do some more shopping, I'm sure you'll find a better price than you already have.
 
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RAM prices are at an all time low.
The prices were lower before the release of Windows 7. Prices are falling again but hardly what they were 8 months ago. 2x1GB DDR2-800 was 30 bucks now the same memory is about 50. The memory that I bought was 16 for the same specs. After spending 16, I'm still waiting for the price to come back down to 30. With this in mind I must disagree with you on memory being at an all time low.
 

Nibiru2012

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RAM prices are high, not as high as in the recent past, but still high.

DDR2 took a big spike upward around a year ago.
 

catilley1092

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I didn't realize it went up and down that much in that short a period. What I was thinking about was years ago, when it cost me over $120 to upgrade a laptop from 256MB to 512MB (256MB x2). At that time, 1GB was out of reach for the average person, although that was it's max. I remember a friend telling me that I'd be better off to buy a single 512MB chip, to give me 640MB. But I didn't think it was a good idea to mix new & old. And to this day, matched sets are recommended. But I see where you're coming from on current pricing. I paid $104 for 2x 2GB DDR2 RAM, that puts it in line with what you're referring to above. I'm glad it was no higher than that, because when I started looking, I was figuring around $80. So your estimate is right, because if things were like a year ago, I'd have gotten it for $80.
 

Core

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RAM prices are high, not as high as in the recent past, but still high.

DDR2 took a big spike upward around a year ago.
Like Catilley, I didn't realize either that they'd gone up. Or that they would fluctuate that much in general. Looking at the price tags now I'm glad I upgraded when I did. Not that I get a whole lot of use of that 8 GB, but seeing that amount, I am unabashed to say, strokes something in just the right way.
 

Fire cat

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Like Catilley, I didn't realize either that they'd gone up. Or that they would fluctuate that much in general. Looking at the price tags now I'm glad I upgraded when I did. Not that I get a whole lot of use of that 8 GB, but seeing that amount, I am unabashed to say, strokes something in just the right way.
Hey Core!
Yep, it all went up. A few months ago, I upgraded an other PC to 4GBs, and that was for 60$.

Cheers,
Fire Cat

By the way thanks for adding and "s" to the title, Clifford I suppose?
 

Nibiru2012

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I didn't realize it went up and down that much in that short a period.
RAM is traded like a commodity is, such as wheat, corn and pork bellies. If you want to see something really interesting, check out the following from March 6, 2002,

SDRAM and DDR module prices are continuing to rise rapidly across the industry. We highlighted this trend a couple of months ago when memory prices first hit about double their rock-bottom levels of October 2001. Now, memory prices are at about 3x the low levels of October 2001, as displayed by a graph of the weekly memory price e-mail from Crucial.com:



Prices are expected to keep rising in the near future, and DRAM revenues (not necessarily unit volume) are expected to make a huge comeback in 2002, with totals 55% higher than in 2001. Read more on that at ChipGeek.

ROB'S OPINION
Why do I highlight the numbers from Crucial.com? It's simple: the company is nice enough to e-mail weekly price listings to whomever wants them. You just go to the Crucial site and sign up. Also, it doesn't hurt that it's part of Micron, now the biggest DRAM supplier in the world, and thus a good measure of module pricing. In any case, in the past two weekly mailings I noticed another big uptick from the last one we reported.


I could see this trend continuing to $120 for 256 MB, but I don't think it will go much higher than that for long. Perhaps every couple of months I'll add on to the graph, and we'll report that prices are going up or down. Also, I have some data from before September 29, 2001, when prices were much higher–so, it's only fair to mention that, and try to get it into future graphs to show the full story. However, for those of us who remember the glory days of September-October 2001, the current trend is not one that we enjoy as consumers, even if it does bring the memory industry back to profitability.

SOURCE

Based on 2002 prices, the 2 x 1GB sticks of Mushkin DDR2 PC8500 RAM I got this week would have cost me $960 ! :eek:


 
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