Expert: Karl Zick - 6/19/2007

Question
If I get the Acer Aspire at Circuit City that you previously recommended to me, and I want to add RAM to bring it up from 512 MB to 1-1.5 GB, what's your best advice as to where should I buy it and how much it'll cost me? It's either that or get a different computer with more juice, so I want to compare. Thanks.

Answer
Hi Carol,

When I helped a friend purchase an ACER at Circuit city last week, they had their Kingston 1 GB DDR2 RAM boards on special for $49 (normally $129).  Suggest you watch for a similar deal.

Be aware that as on most new computers, a certain amount of your PC RAM is shared with your on-board video.  If You stick with 512, 64MB will be used for video, and if you upgrade to 1.536 GB, 256 GB will be used for video.  Your video speed is very important in your overall system performance, so it is a very good trade-off.

I really don't think you will find a better computer anywhere for this price (at least not at the moment).