Thomas Eden
ITEC 343
Article # 7

I am actually learning something from doing these article reviews. That something is that there are literally thousands of sources for news about technology and computers and that all of them manage to write articles about the same thing every day. Unless you dig a little, the only thing happening in the technology world is that Netflix has scrapped the idea of splitting dvd and streaming service. (Thank God, what a terrible idea. If you could actually stream new releases, it would be OK, but I digress). There’s a new iPhone coming out, so get your credit card ready, you can’t possibly live without these new features. Oh, and some guy named Steve Jobs is dead. But me, I go above and beyond. I dig deep to find interesting articles about things that relate to this class. Why, you ask. Because I care, that’s why. The article I found is titled “Should I upgrade my RAM?” Want to read it? Sure you do. http://www.pcworld.com/article/240679/should_i_upgrade_my_ram.html This is a short and sweet article (unlike this rambling virtual paper wasting article review that you may or may not be reading). The first line of the article answers the question in a way that I fully relate to. It says, “If the money is right, then you probably should.” Next the article talks about using the system scanner tool that will tell you specifically what your system can handle and what type of RAM your board supports. This is the coolest part. I have often wondered what type of RAM is in my computer. It’s just something I usually forget very shortly after building the rig. Heck, I built this very computer less than a month ago and I can’t remember what’s in there. This is a very useful tool.
The next segment of the article talks about how upgrading your RAM may not produce a significant speed upgrade if you already have a reasonable amount. According to one series of tests, going from 4 to 8 GB of RAM only produced a 3% increase in performance. Of course, there are tons of factors to consider that can influence how much a boost in RAM will benefit your specific machine.
What makes this article relevant to class and everyday life is that RAM is obviously a main component in a computer. It is also very easily upgradable. Personally, I like to have a nice chunk of RAM for editing large music files. I remember using a computer years ago that had 1.5 GB of RAM (pretty good for the time) and really getting bogged down when working on large multi-track production.
Another thing to be wary of is too much RAM. My buddy built a rig with 16 GB and he has some cooling issues. In the final analysis RAM has gotten crazy cheap, I paid ten dollars for 4 GB. (after rebate, still not here yet) So I would say, Use the tool to identify your needs, and give it a shot.