[Yert]

Okay, so heres the lay, and keep in mind that I'm not personally upgrading a computer, just very curious.

Assuming you have a system with 1 GB of RAM, and a intergrated video card, sapping 64 MB of it, which would do the most for performance?

1. Upgrading the RAM to 2 GB, all other things being equal.

2. Upgrading to an average video card with 512 MB of RAM, all other things being equal.

I am very interested to hear opinions on this subject as to why and which. Thank you ahead of time.

[coastie65]

Hi yert, personally, I would move up to a video card just to get off the onboard stuff and the shared memory aspect. It would also help speed things up a bit. You can always add memory later. coastie65

[techie4fun]

Video card.

[lilxkid24]

Ram to 2gigs if your not a gamer because theres no need to upgrade vid memory.

[jbking]

IMO, it depends on the nature of the system and what applications you plan on running,.

If you are playing graphic-intensive games then the video card may be better in allowing games to be played with higher settings than the integrated video while in other situations the additional RAM is better if your system doesn't need much graphics power.

JB

[smax013]

jbking said:

IMO, it depends on the nature of the system and what applications you plan on running,.

If you are playing graphic-intensive games then the video card may be better in allowing games to be played with higher settings than the integrated video while in other situations the additional RAM is better if your system doesn't need much graphics power.


JB

I would agree with [~12318]...it would largely depend on what you use your system for as well as to a smaller degree the other specifications of your system.



If you primary "function" for the computer is gaming or other graphically intense tasks, then the video card is the better choice. More memory would also help in this area, but the video card would likely do more.



For general use, you will likely get better results from the memory, especially if you run multiple general applications at once or if your OS is Vista.

[Flashorn]

hey Yert! I would also add to what has been said, If you plan on a Virtual Machine, Then More Ram would be the way to go.



FLASHORN.

[Number3124]

I'd go with the Vid card for three reasons, it would free up the 64MBs of RAM it's sucking up, the discrete card would have more bandwidth, and it's faster for the card to access its on board ram than the systems RAM.