hi need someone to help me clear this up,

Is there any point of putting more then 1 gig of ram in a system cos windows xp pro doesnt even come close to using 600mb of ram.

So wats the deal there if windows cant even utilize the amount of ram we have, how does that work?

I know i seen some MACs where u could drag and drop applications in to ur ram and they ran instantly!(SMACK DADDY FAST!)

Could someone explain in detail how this works? (like how much the kernal uses and why??)

CHeers!

Depends on what your running. I have 2gigs in my system right now and I've been able to get utilization to a steady 75% at times. It's totally dependent on what apps your running. No windows wont use more than 600 for itself usually, but its the applications your running that will use the rest.

i normally check the task manager to see how much of my mem is being used, i know that windows it self wont use more then 600mb but ive have a few games running and with photoshop running and it doesnt use more then 600mb,

do u use a 3rd party application to monitor ur ram?

Try this... My computer, tools, folder options, view - scroll down a little and check the box that says 'Launch folder windows in a separate process'. Should speed things up a little.

If you are running resource intensive applications additional ram can often lighten the load on cpu time
demands. This frees up processor time to handle larger volumes of data, video, graphics, and other.

it all depends what you do. if you just surf the web and work on documents, 1GB is more than enough. I personally have 2GBs just because i do so much at once. while it won't make a huge difference at first, you'll notice that everything will run a little smoother. yesterday i was watching a movie, burning two cds, trying to work on a paper and surfing the web all at the same time. if you're really strapped for cash, i would go for the 1GB now and if you really need it, upgrade later on.