HP Pavilion 300-230 Mini Desktop (Intel Core i3, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD) - RAM upgrade question

orestesdd

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Jul 21, 2010
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I am planning to buy an HP Pavilion 300-230 Mini Desktop with Intel Core i3-5005U, 4GB RAM, and 1TB HDD as I stated in the title. I plan to use this mini desktop mainly to cut TV cable services and as a HTPC, but since it comes only with 4GB RAM, I don't believe it has enough RAM to handle properly Windows 10 64bit OS and the purpose for this PC. So I just wonder if I should upgrade to 8GB RAM(will this be enough RAM?) or 16GB RAM). By the way, the specs for this HP model can be found here: HP Pavilion 300-230 Mini Desktop PC Product Specifications.

I also provide the RAM information found at the above mentioned web page:

Dual channel memory architecture
+ Two DDR3 SODIMM sockets
+ Supports up to PC3-14900 (1866 MHz)
+ Supports 2 GB, 4 GB, and 8 GB SODIMMs
+ Supports up to 4 GB on 32-bit* systems
+ Supports up to 16 GB on 64-bit systems
Note:
*- 32-bit systems cannot address a full 4.0 GB of memory

Thus, should I go with 8GB RAM or 16GB? Note that Crucial 8GB Single DDR3/DDR3L 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) costs $38 whereas a Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3/DDR3L-1600 MHz (PC3-12800) costs $73 USD. Please, recommendations and thoughts. Thanks.
 

orestesdd

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Jul 21, 2010
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So do you think that possibly 8gb of ram will be more than enough? I almost agree, for my laptop only has 8gb of ram, and it works just fine, but I am running windows 7 pro 64 bit. Anyhow, I will wait for a few more comments or thoughts before I decide how to upgrade the ram, but I am inclined towards 8gb unless someone convince me otherwise.
I just wonder if this mini pc comes with only one 4gb ddr3 sodimm memory module. If this is the case, it would be a lot cheaper just to buy a Crucial 4GB Single DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 SODIMM 204-Pin memory module for $20 USD. I wonder how I can find out such information to see how many memory slots this pc has. I am almost sure it has 2, but I want to be 100% sure before I buy. At any rate, thanks.

 

ingtar33

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well you're not using it as a pc. you're just using it as a htpc. so one browser tab at a time, nothing else much running right?

i'd say 4gb is more then enough. if you plan to use this for more then that let me know, but your stated use was HTPC, and all i was saying is I was moderately multitasking as i was responding to your post at that time, and i wasn't using 4gb of ram on my windows 10 x64 pc. currently i'm using about 5gb of ram, but i have several ram hungry piggy programs running that weren't running when i first replied. For example file history is as i type this currently backing up my pc to a home NAS. And you know how stupid heavy windows backup services can get on ram use.