RAM Questions + Advice

[itsallaboutyou]

Hi Guys,

I have a Dell Dimension E520, 2.67 GHZ Processor and 2gb ram.

I do a lot of CAD work and although the machine and graphics card I have aren't specifically designed for AutoCad it seems to run fine... I would however, like to double my RAM to 4GB, my questions are...

1) Can i find out the PC rating 4200, 5300 etc.. of my current memory easily??
2) If not can I mix and match??

I assume the memory in my machine will just be the generic ram that dell provide, so I'm just wondering if its possible...

3) Is it worth it?? Will I see much of a performance boost in Vista Ultimate??

EDIT

4) Does Vista 32 bit recognise 4gb?

The machine is mainly used for day to day office stuff and the odd game if i fancy it.

Any help gratefully received!

Cheers,

Tom

 

[jak731]

Download a piece of software called CPUZ (just type it into google and it will be first thing to come up), then run CPUZ on that machine. Under the memory tab you can find out which memory banks are filled and what size they are, the SPD tab will tell you what speed the memory is.

If its worth it or not depends on what you do, try looking in task manager when you've got the maximum number of programs you use running and see if mem usage goes over the amount you've already got, if it doesn't then don't bother upgrading.

To the best of my knowledge you need 64bit to recognise more than 3GB.