I have a Dell Vostro 3700 with a core i7 processor and 4 Gb DDR3 ram. What one t

[D@rkAng3LS]

I have a Dell Vostro 3700 with a core i7 processor and 4 Gb DDR3 ram. What one thing could I change to make it faster?

 

[Maziar]

Aside from RAM/HDD you're pretty much stuck with other components

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

Aside from RAM/HDD you're pretty much stuck with other components

Thanks for that. Is it safe to assume that putting another 4 Gb ram will speed it up when gaming on and offline?

 

[lostandwandering]

^Not really. 4GB of RAM is enough for the majority of games and standard applications. If you are doing some heavy photo rendering or video converting, then you might see some benefit. That laptop should not be slow in any way, unless you are trying to play newer games on the integrated HD graphics.

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

Thanks but for $50 extra I think I will rather play it safe. Just the wmpn sharing uses 98% of the 4 GB RAM on it's own..............

 

[AntiZig]

Thanks but for $50 extra I think I will rather play it safe. Just the wmpn sharing uses 98% of the 4 GB RAM on it's own..............

I seriously doubt that

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

Doubt what?

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

Btw, I just finished installing it and WOW what a difference on all round performance and it only cost R500.

 

[AntiZig]

you finished installing what?

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

Follow the thread and you will be enlightened.................The extra 4 GB RAM.

 

[randomstar]

If all you need is more speed, I would put a reasonable SSD in as a boot drive, and put all the files on an ESATA or USB3.0 drive. that would stand to make the most diff. as for the RAM making a difference, it depends on what you are running at the same time. as for Gaming, is you are running nothing but the game, 4gb would be more than enough, but if you have other functions running at the same time, then max it out if you can afford it.
(I always say that if your operating system and hardware will take more, get as much ram as you can afford to put in. it cannot hurt!)

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

Thank you randomstar. That is the best damn advice I have heard this week on a lot of different forums. I appreciate the advice.

 

[lostandwandering]

Thank you randomstar. That is the best damn advice I have heard this week on a lot of different forums. I appreciate the advice.

Question: Did the Vostro come with a 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm HDD?

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

It is a 7200 rpm.

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

@ randomstar. Would I only put my os on the SSD? Would a 16 GB SSD be good enough?

 

[randomstar]

16 gig aint gonna cut it.. realisticly.

even 32 would be a close call. One thing I can suggest is setting up a ramdrive that initializes at boot, and putting your paging file on that virtual partition. it makes a huge diff also. dropping the system to 24gb ram and gaving 8 for the swap file/page file would generate huge gains combined with a moderate SSD. - Have seen quite a few respectible drives at or under $100US. - depending on where you are.
( the theory here is that many software cannot make use of the full compliment of ram, many less than 2 gb. but they however can make use of a large paging file, and if that happens to also be in ram,,, whoa, nellie- you just got a turbo)

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

@ randomstar. I have to say that you are a GENIUS. I never thought I could get that kind of advice for free. Secondly, holy *** that makes soooo much sense and I will definitely be trying that on my desktop PC which I was considering putting into retirement because I thought it would be too expensive to upgrade her and get her running good enough to run games like Crysis 2 or Battlefield 3 but ALAS you have given me hope. once again, I THANK YOU OH WISE ONE, MASTER and ORACLE (he says while taking a bow). i am forever in your debt.

 

[D@rkAng3LS]

More like a twin turbo with supercharger