Help me settle an office dispute... SSD or RAM?

[Faceman]

64gb ssd's are incredibly slow. they are barely faster than a good hdd.

I find that hard to believe. Can you provide evidence of this?

[Jumper118]

I find that hard to believe. Can you provide evidence of this?

yes. the ssd in my htpc does 155 write and 200 read, the hdd is nearly as fast.

[tmlhalo]

Even though SSDs are much slower than RAM (hold your horses...). It is better going into a page file on an SSD than a page file on a HDD. So dipping into low system memory / crossing into the page file memory isn't going to hit the user on the SSD as hard. I would go with the SSD, most non techy people I see barely know how to work chrome tabs anyways. If it isn't the first and "only" tab, it has "disappeared". Plus they never defrag so problem solved on SSD. They would also be lucky to virus scan, so if the automated scan finishes quickly before they have a chance to turn the machine back off, also good.

[RazrLeaf]

You boot once, load programs once a day, and spend the rest of the time running the programs and opening way too many tabs in your internet browser. Get the RAM.

[Chungerz]

This really depends on the OS.

 

Work computers are generally running a 32bit due to a lot of legacy applications. to address more than 4Gb ram you need to have a 64bit OS.

Word, Excel and general work apps don't need that much RAM.

Sure your internet browser may take more memory but how many tabs are you going to open for work? and if you don't have a 64 bit OS I would say an SSD would be more benefit to make things a bit faster.

[OCing Noob]

SSD

[Faceman]

yes. the ssd in my htpc does 155 write and 200 read, the hdd is nearly as fast.

I am seeing a lot faster speeds on the 64GB SSDs.

 

HDD Speeds

SSD Speeds

 

Also, its not all about read and writes.  I have the Kingston V300 which has atrocious read and writes, but my computer is blazing fast for day to day tasks.  It takes me 14 seconds from the time I click to power button to the time I open up Firefox.  Thats fast.  I score poorly on the Crystaldisk tests, but as long as my computer boots fast, and everything loads fast, that is all I care about.  I have never used an HDD that comes even close to the speed of my "bad" SSD, and I have owned 10k RPM HDDs before just for the OS, similar to how I use my SSD.

 

I don't see how a compromise can't be made to get both a 64GB SSD and 4GB of RAM.  Even at a straight to consumer price, you can fit both inside the 50 pound price tag.  At wholesale, it should be well below 50 pounds for 4GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD.

[Shroomster]

RAM all the way at least in my books.

[Trik'Stari]

SSD's. Your sales team are morons.

 

 

Or just go with both, and throat punch anyone that disagrees.

[ROK]

get 16gb ram

[ArM]

Hey All,

 

Got a dispute happening in the office at the moment, I am asking our sales guys to quote new PC's with an SSD instead of an extra 4GB of RAM (They come with 4GB pre-installed from HP) and an extra 4GB HP Branded RAM is around the same price as a 256GB SSD here in the UK.

 

I think we will get a much better performance boost out of the PC's by upgrading the SSD rather than the RAM and have a much happier client in the long run... the sales team here disagree so i was hoping a poll of what you guys think may help settle the dispute.

 

If you could vote, that would be great

 

Thanks

 

Edit - PC's will be used for general office work, using all Microsoft Office Applications, Internet Browsing, Sage Accounts (Data located on a server).

 

SSD upgrade if it's for a classic home/desktop use.

Up the RAM it's only need if you gonna use a lot of programs at the same time and they consume much ressources.

 

Today for most people 2GB still enough

[drkRoss89]

Ideally, you should go for both. The office would benefit from faster boot-up times for the Operating System and commonly used programs. However, I would personally prioritise the RAM over the SSD.

 

PS: And if you can, ditch the HP-branded RAM. Get a reasonably priced 4 GB RAM modules from companies like Crucial, Kingston, Samsung, Corsair etc, snap up an SSD and load up the OS and commonly used applications onto the drive. 

[Chungerz]

Is it a 32-bit or 64-bit OS?

 

There is no point getting more RAM if it is a 32-bit OS. 8GB and above exceed the maximum addressable memory space on 32-bit Windows.