Memory horsepower

Q: I’ve heard a lot of people on this show talking about the memory issues they are having with their computers. I’d like to purchase a new computer. How much memory should I get so I do not have to worry about memory issues or upgrades down the road?

A: Whenever someone asks me this question I always break down my answer into a good, better and best situation. This is because there really is no clear cut answer that applies to everyone.

The trick to determining how much memory you should get in your computer really comes down to the right balance between horsepower and your wallet. In other words, the more horsepower-in this case memory-that you give your computer, the longer it is going to last before you have to worry about upgrading or trading in for a new computer.

Of course, more horsepower means more money. Hence, the need to strike the right balance.

Let’s start with the good memory configuration. Right now I would not buy any computer that doesn’t have at least one gigabyte of memory. When reading the description of a computer, this may be listed as either 1 gigabyte (GB) or 1024 megabytes (MB), both of which mean exactly the same thing. A computer with 1 gigabyte of memory should be sufficient for a couple years.

Moving up to the better memory configuration, I would recommend a computer with 2 gigabytes of memory. These are a little harder to find but if you watch the computer ads closely you will occasionally see a nice computer loaded with 2 gigabytes of memory. Again, 2 gigabytes may be listed as either 2 gigabytes or 2048 megabytes. A computer with 2 gigabytes of memory should be sufficient for anywhere from 2-4 years.

Finally, the best memory configuration. If you have the money to spend, a computer with 4 gigabytes of memory will give you the cat’s meow. With this configuration, you may even find that you will want to buy an entire new computer before you ever have to worry about upgrading your memory down the road.

As proof in point to that last statement, five years ago I purchased a computer with 512 megabytes of memory, one of the best memory configurations available at the time. One month ago I had to replace that computer with a new one because of my ongoing frustration trying to run just a small handful of software applications on it.

Curious how much memory this techie included in his new computer? 4 gigabytes. Of course!

This post was originally broadcast Friday, March 2, 2007 on “Tech Talk with Noobie”, a weekly radio show on WCBK 102.3 FM in Martinsville, Indiana. Tech Talk with Noobie airs every Friday at 11:30 a.m. If you have a question you would like Noobie to answer on the air, simply e-mail your question to .