couldn't find a specific forum for this, hope it's o.k here.

I'm thinking of adding ram to my desktop.
it has Intel i3 530 2.93 GHz CPU, gigabyte h55m- usb3 mobo. Samsung 7200 rpm 32mb sata 2 1T H.D .
currently i have 2x2 GB ram. think to add more 2x4 gb .

i read in some places a controversial opinions that adding ram cause more heat in the p.c .
some people said that after doing it their temp went up for few cel. degrees .
the reason that i'm trying to know it in advance is because my p.c was build for max quietness and therefore as less possible working fans.( i have passive cooling on the cpu and my case is antec p-182 with upper fan disabled and others on minimum speed).
so if it really cause more heat it means more fans, more noise.

I'm still trying to check if, and how much ram i need and the combination of those 2 subjects will help me make decisions .

another question is if raising the ram speed , let say from 1333 to 1600 mhz (both are in my hardware spec range) will cause more heat?

RAM does use power but a small amount. 1-2W per stick perhaps depending upon voltage, frequency, number of sticks, there's a few parameters that could influence it.

Will this influence computer temperatures? Very marginal to the point of being scientifically unmeasurable. People who are reporting temperature changes of a couple of degrees are most likely seeing natural statistical variations or other factors coming into play. It's like people on some forums say "I did x and lowered my CPU temp by 1C! It must be better". That never makes sense when the accuracy of measurements is +/-1C and whatever temperatrue you compare that to is also +/-1C hence the combined accuracy is +/-2C.

someone else told me that:
"People who are reporting temperature changes of a couple of degrees are most likely seeing natural statistical variations or other factors coming into play."



what about raising ram mhz speed ?

and if i may, one more.
how do i know for sure if i really need more ram?

i think that my everyday applications are not so demanding, but when i open some game like the sims 3, it takes a lot of time until it is loaded ( it's not a very demanding game but it has o lot of content), during playing the game it looks like o.k.
and while the game is running on background, even without playing, every simple act on the pc is very, very slow.
also, when doing regular multitasking it slow the pc.
i aware of the fact that the hard drive can be also one of the reasons to that.

It's generally accepted that power consumption of components is proportional to frequency. Therefore if you overlock by 10%, you'd add 10% to the power consumption. If a RAM stick is 2W then you'd add 0.2W. These are tiny amounts. Changing voltage of RAM can make more of a difference but it is still only going to be a couple of Watts per stick which as a proportion of the total systems consumption, is minimal.



So it sounds like you might have used up the RAM and be working in virtual memory. This is slower as you've seen.

Before adding more RAM I would instead look at how your system uses RAM (under Windows use the task manager to see how memory is used) and save as much as possible:
1. Remove/disable all hardware not required including unused devices on the motherboard. The drivers for each device use RAM.
2. Go through the services started by Windows and disable those not required:
http://www.jasonn.com/turning_off_unnec ... windows_xp
3. Look at applications that are running in the taskbar. Uninstall everything that you don't need. This is a common area for RAM to be wasted and it can add up to the hundreds of megabytes.
4. Diasable things in Windows that you don't need. Aero for example or Windows sounds for when you switch on/off your computer.

No point in wasting money on more RAM if you're already wasting RAM itself with things that you don't need.

Windows tends to be pretty bad at handling memory usage and it's something I notice as a Linux user whenever I use a Windows system. When gaming under Windows things run out of memory and then run slow whereas on Linux you tend to see it paging silently in the background preemptively so that you never get to the point of completely running out.

i did some checking with windows task manager performance.
looks like the sims 3 game is a big memory eater.
the cpu is most of the time on 5-20 % usage, depending what is running.
when running this game the memory usage is around 80 % , and after adding some more programs , like playing movie, Samsung allshare , browser , utorent , it comes to 95 %.
after closing the game the memory usage go down to 45% , without the movie to 40% and without allshare program to 34 % .

regarding other suggestions , most of them i already did , I'll try to do the rest but do you think it'll make such a big difference ? btw what do you mean by "unused devices on the motherboard" - shortcuts ?

looks like i don't understand something basic.
if the physical memory used almost fully ( although it happens only while using that game) and it start to use virtual memory, isn't it means that if I'll add ram, things will become better ?

Getting a cheap SSD and run the OS and apps (and perhaps a favorite game or two) of that would speed up your computer experience more than adding more RAM. You already have 4GB and that's plenty for the stuff you use the computer for, unless you have lots of crapware installed.
If you decide to get more RAM, be aware that you may run into compatibility problems. Using four DIMMs, mixing capacity and perhaps manufacturer. Works just fine in most cases, but you could end up having to use only the two new sticks to avoid problems.

i agree with everything you said.
using ssd h.d will make a big deference. the thing is that installing os and all the tunings is something that someone else do for me and i'm considering to do it a bit latter.
my pc is relatively clean from crapware.

I'm a bit in dilemma about adding ram, because as you see on regular work the ram max usage is up to 50 %, and only when using that game it raise to 80-90 %.

regarding compatibility problems, i'm aware of this . i'll try to consult with g.skill, and worst case will be, as you said, that i'll work only with the new 2x 4gb sticks.

Let's say you have onboard graphics but also have a separate graphics card. Or onboard sound and also a separate sound card, or anything else duplicated for that matter. If these have drivers installed and running by windows then they will use a small amount of RAM. It's therefore best to disable everything that you don't need. This might also include things like a floppy disk controller when you have no floppy disk drive, or IDE controller when you only have SATA disks, or Firewire when you have no firewire devices. Just disable them in the BIOS so that they can't get in the way, it potentially can save a small amount of power in some cases too.

a, o.k, i don't have any of those.