ram upgrade?

[Nikeballa09]

Hi, everyone, I am new to anandtech. I have a toshiba laptop with centrino cpu running at 1.5 ghz. I has 256 ram. I will be upgrading ram soon and would like to know if 256 more would be enough or should i add 512 more, or would 512 more be overkill and a waste of money. I do pretty basic computing tasks. I usually run aim, a few internet explorer windows, win media player, and ms office. ever since i installed mcafee internet security suite aim windows have been laggin while i try to move them. no other app does this including aim buddy list, its just the aim windows. so i am sure that i need more ram, and i just wanted to know oppinions on how much more i should purchase.

Thank you for the feedback.

 

[kamranziadar]

Well if you are running multiple programs at once then you need 512MB, but for just surfing the net 256 will be enough.

 

[TheWarden]

For what you are doing, I think an additional 256 MB would be perfect. 512 MB (total) seems to be the sweet spot for runining office applications under WIndows XP.

Cheers,
Warden

 

[Sonic587]

Yeah, an extra 256MB will generally make windows feel a lot smoother. If you're talking about another 512MB in addition to the 256MB you already have, that's overkill for your situation.