Computer changes need GURU input

[Warseth]

Old system:
Asus m3a mobo
AMD Phenom 9750
3 gigs of ddr2 (x2 1 gig sticks x2 512 sticks) vista 32 cant support over 3 gigs reason i did that and learned it hurts performance mixing sticks like that...doh.
280gtx ASUS Nvidia card
SB Xi-fi gamer sound
Windows Vista 32 bit
250g WD HD 5200rpm

NEW Set up:
x2 2gig sticks of Kingston Extreme ram (what ever that top end ram is called by them)
750g 7200rpm WD Black HD
Windows 7 Home 64 Bit


Now my questions:
Do you see if this is a greater leap in performance? Why? Not minor but big leap is what i mean.

Will adding additional ram 2 more sticks to make it 8 Gigs total ....will this really make a significant difference or is 4 gig pretty damn good .....

[Isak]

I think you'll only notice the difference when you hit the hdd a lot. The extra 1GB of ram and overhead for the split module size should be more minimal.

For 8GB v 4GB, you'll probably see less swapping and faster application start up due to how Windows since Vista treats non-used memory. Probably not going to see any change in most games since they rarely include a 64bit binary so the process is still stuck at the 4GB limit for most purposes. 6GB is probably the sweet spot right now for price and performance, unfortunately that's not viable unless you have an i7 with the triple channel memory controller.

I think overall this is a pretty minor upgrade, unless I've underestimated what the impact of the ram would be. That said I'd would still follow through with the upgrade unless you are planning something more significant within the next year.

Just for comparisons sake:
Asus p5e3 mobo
Core2 Quad @ 3GHz
Nvidia 8800 GTS 512MB(The one with the core that the 9x00 and 2x0 series are based on)
4GB DDR3
72GB 10k RPM SATA
2TB Raid 0

The only things on that I'm thinking about are the video card, and either more storage for the raid or getting a larger 10k drive.