DO i really need 4gb of ram for this computer?

Question

alien ware aurora

Processor: AMD® Phenom™ X4 9550 Quad Core 2.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache

Alienware P2 Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis with AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling - Space Black

System Lighting: Alienware® Standard System Lighting - Nebula Aqua

System Cooling: Alienware® Standard System Cooling

Power Supply: Alienware® 750 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply

Graphics Processor: Single 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800 GT

Motherboard: Alienware® Approved AMD® 790FX Motherboard

Includes PCI-Express 2.0, BIOS Overclocking Utility, and Support for AMD Phenom Quad-Core Processors

Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1 – DirectX 10 Ready!

System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 250GB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 16MB Cache

Optical Drives : Single Drive Configuration - 20X Dual-Layer Burner (DVD±RW)

Enthusiast Essentials: Single High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Port

Sound Card: High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio - Standard

Answer 1

Need?  No, but that's a lot of horsepower to waste on a mere 2 GB

Answer 2

Do you need it now? Perhaps not. Will you need it after you upgrade your OS and apps in a year? Or two? Yes.

I'm Mac user but I think my advice is pretty general: When I bought my first computer, a Mac II, I needed to upgrade the RAM from 256kb, that's right, 256KB! I was wondering if I should just go to 1MB or go for the maximum of 4MB. A friend said: "always get the maximum RAM; you will be sure to need it down the road" So I did. Guess what, he was right. So now I just bought my 8th & 9th computer, an iMac and a Macbook. I maxed out the RAM at 4GB on both. I know I will need it in the future.

From 4KB to 4 GB over the span of 20 years. Wow.

Answer 3

It's a good system, If you are using it for Gaming the 4 gigs of ram is what your looking for minimum. Ram is so cheap these days, also if your using this system for non-gaming and you wan't to drop the ram down to 2 gigs ( no lower than 2 gigs) I would recommend upgrading your Graphics card to a SLI setup but that is a lot more costly. If your not going to be gaming or doing extensive media projects on your pc than 2 gigs would be fine. But who buys an Alienware system just to run spreadsheets on it. Good luck