Is increase page file windows 10 equivalent to increasing RAM nowadays?

[jonnyyyl]

Provided that the OS drive is in SSD or M.2, and that no overclock takes place, would increasing page file size be the same as increasing RAM nowadays?

 

I mean, we pay a lot for RAM, but if SSDs are getting bigger and cheaper...

[Aleksbgbg]

2 minutes ago, jonnyyyl said:

Provided that the OS drive is in SSD or M.2, and that no overclock takes place, would increasing page file size be the same as increasing RAM nowadays?

No

[Godlygamer23]

RAM is significantly faster than even the fastest SSD, so no.

[007agentHP]

RAM bandwidth is far faster than an ssd

DDR3 RAM has an available bandwidth of 15 GB/s 

 

the fastest SSD is capable of 2.5 GB/s

 

that is way too slow

[jonnyyyl]

5 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

RAM is significantly faster than even the fastest SSD, so no.

but would it be a cost effective way?

say there's an old computer, used for general services and basic productivity, still in good shape, boosting page file would be the most cost effective way in theory. 

[Godlygamer23]

3 minutes ago, jonnyyyl said:

but would it be a cost effective way?

say there's an old computer, used for general services and basic productivity, still in good shape, boosting page file would be the most cost effective way in theory. 

Not really. You're likely to spend more on an SSD in explicit cost, and you're not getting anywhere near the same bandwidth. Computers need a lot of bandwidth when it comes to their working memory. Paging to something that might give 2GB/s(for example) is not cost effective. The computer will still be dog slow, but not as bad.

[jonnyyyl]

5 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Why would an old computer have an SSD? Just replace the RAM.

If the RAM is soldered, then... yeah, I guess, but it's NOT close to adding RAM.

 

Yea... the RAM is soldered in this very particular case....

[SpaceGhostC2C]

6 minutes ago, jonnyyyl said:

 

Yea... the RAM is soldered in this very particular case....

If the computer is paging a lot, replacing an HDD for an SSD, or moving the page file from the HDD to the SSD will improve performance.

 

Increasing the size of the page file will have no effect. Using the page file at all is what slows you down. If Windows complains about being out of memory due to the page file not being big enough, you can increase its size manually to overcome it. But it's a binary thing: either it's not big enough and you hit the wall, or it's sufficiently big and everything runs normally. If you are not hitting the maximum size, expanding the page file has zero effect on anything.

[zMeul]

I remember back with Vista and I think it carried out to W10, haven't tested, Windows Ready Boost - you can use flash storage as cache and it's supposed to help systems with low amounts of RAM

how well does it work ...... dunno

you can try with a USB caddy and a cheapo 32/64GB SSD - you won't get the bandwidth, but you'll get the fast access times