Buying a 4gb DDR3 ram

Hey guys, i am using the pc having following specs:

Hi, i have the following pc specs:

Hard disk- Wd caviar 320GB
WD 1TB

CPU- Intel Core i3 2100 @ 3.10GHz

RAM- Kingston 4.00 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz

Motherboard- Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. H61M-DS2 (Socket 1155)

Monitor- Samsung LED S22B370

Gfx card- 1 GB DDR3 ATI Radeon HD 5450 (XFX Pine Group)

LG DVDROM ATA

I am feeling a bit of lag in opening applications and accessing hard drives(both). Will buying an extra 4gb Ram help in boosting the speed? Please suggest with brand name.

nope, you barely use the available 4 GB memory in most applications.. adding another 4GB memory will not improve any performance at all..
If by applications you mean games, then adding a better GPU will improve it significantly
Also make sure you are using 64bit windows

OK ,thanks. But 64 bit windows? Why, i am using 32 bit since i purchased this pc.

32 bit windows has a limitation that it can use only 3.25 GB of RAM of the total available memory..
64 bit can utilize much more .. So if you are gonna be using 4GB or more RAM, always use 64bit windows

Ohh, that's why in system information, i am getting only 3.49 gb as usable!! What a facepalm by me, wasting 500 mb of my ram since 2 years!!

But you'll face some problems with your old software, If you move to 64Bit.

64 bit has the capability to run all native 32 bit softwares, either by normal means or by 32 bit emulation

Is it possible that my graphics card is allocated the 500 mb ram for use in BIOS?

apurvgupta1 said:
Is it possible that my graphics card is allocated the 500 mb ram for use in BIOS?

That setting is for the IGP, not the graphic card.

This is what appears in display properties. Am i doing anything wrong?

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachments/pc-components-configurations/10467d1368348024-buying-4gb-ddr3-ram-display-properties.jpg

Oh, that 1531 MB Shared System memory is the maximum memory which the graphic card can use out of the system memory.

And this is system properties- only 3.49 gb usable!! Why? Is it because of 32 bit os?

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachments/pc-components-configurations/10468d1368349353-buying-4gb-ddr3-ram-sys-info.jpg

yep.. thats because of 32 bit os
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachments/pc-components-configurations/10469d1368349560-buying-4gb-ddr3-ram-untitled.png
Notice how I dont have any "XXX RAM usable notification"
BTW, if u are using Intel HD graphics, you will still have some unusable ram because the IGP will utilise the system memory

I have a separate graphic card as written by me in original post, then why this integrated intel HD thing is using the memory?

No, in your case it is because of 32 bit OS

OK, then many thanks for the help. Will install 64 bit OS soon.