If my CPU is at 97% will adding memory help?

kraz wrote on 12/31/2009, 2:15 AM

My secondary machine is a laptop - Dual Core Centrino Lenovo T61 with (upgrade to) Windows7 64 and 4GB ram.

My Rendering is fairly slow on this.
I don't think it is worth it (2 YO machine) to try and change the CPU - but I was thinking about upgrading to 8GB. (already have an offer for my old chips so cost will be $100-$150)

The question is - when looking at the performance the CPU is at 97% during Render and the memory is at about 50% so will more memory help me at all ...

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/31/2009, 3:40 AM

I think you've already answered your question. Your rendering process isn't using all the memory you have now. Why would more memory make a difference?

Note which of your two items is the bottle neck. That's the one that needs upgrading.

kraz wrote on 12/31/2009, 7:28 AM

I knew that logically ... it was that - but sometimes there are some strange things - so that is why I asked

2G wrote on 1/4/2010, 9:36 PM

I just want to add an additional note... Even if your memory is at 99.9% max, adding more memory won't speed things up. Speed is not affected at all until you go OVER 100%. At that point, Windows has to start swapping segments from memory to the disk and back basically using the disk as 'overflow' for the full memory. This is very performance degrading. If that's happening, you need more memory. But buying memory is always a yes/no decision as to whether it will make things run faster. If you aren't topping 100%, no matter how close to 100% you are running, then more memory will do nothing but make your pocket lighter .