Over on ZDNet I've put up a post that looks at Holiday upgrades that you might want to consider for your PC .

The first, and most important, upgrade that I suggest is adding more RAM:

I’m always amazed at the lengths that some people will go to in order to try to make too little RAM go further.  I’ve seen people waste good money on “RAM doublers” and other utilities that make dubious claims about being able to improve performance when they could have spent that money on some RAM and got instant and measurable results.

Unless you’re running 2GB on 32-bit Windows or 4GB on the 64-bit flavors, there’s always a performance gain to be felt from fitting more RAM. 

Adding RAM is probably the easiest hardware upgrade, and anyone that can handle a screwdriver can do it.  I know that readers here at ZDNet are probably very comfortable with such upgrades but for first-timers, cracking open a PC and tinkering with it can be a daunting experience.  I find that if you hand-hold someone through an upgrade like adding more RAM, their confidence level will be boosted tremendously - that alone could be a great Christmas gift for someone!

Another RAM upgrade that you can do that might be beneficial to your system is to upgrade the speed of your RAM.  For example, if your motherboard supports PC2-6400 RAM but you’ve got slower rated RAM fitted, adding faster RAM is worthwhile (especially for gamers).

If you’re going to push your RAM to the limits or go further and overclock it then you need to go for good quality RAM, and my money goes to Corsair or OCZ.

For more ideas, read the rest of the post!

This entry was posted by the PC Doctor on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 21:03 and is filed under PC Doctor Repair/Upgrade Tips, PC Doctor Tips. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.