RAM and SSD upgrade pointless with this system?

[stevemys]

Hello all,

So I am thinking about upgrading my system due to crashes running blender and skyrim creation kit (namely the heightmap editor). Currently I have win 7 32 but upgrading to 64x as we speak. So the hardware:
Processor: Intel e8400 core 2 duo 3.00 GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
HDD: Western Digital wd64000aaks 640GB

Soooo...

My motherboard only supports 16GB RAM, I have four slots of 1GB right now, should I buy two 8GB, 4x4GB, etc, or does it even matter?

I was thinking about getting a primary SSD of ~60GB and using my HDD as storage, would I notice any differences in gaming/modeling?

And finally, will upgrading my RAM and my HDD even effect gaming/modeling with such a slow processor and older motherboard?

Also, if anyone has any suggestions about what I should upgrade please do share.

Thanks in advance

 

[OhSnapWord]

Quadrupling the RAM will definitely help. The hard drive not so much. An SSD will help programs load faster, not run faster.

 

[Indigo]

Not entirely accurate. An SSD will help programs load AND run faster because if they have to access the drive, that throughput will be much faster. I've used near-identical computers (only thing that was different was the hard drive / SSD it used) and the SSD system beats the snot out of the hard drive system.

There's also a diminishing return on RAM - 4-8GB is fine, over 8GB unless you do a LOT of rendering work, either with code compilation or video / CAD rendering, will be useless.

 

[stevemys]

thanks for the help to both of you. can i ask, would it hurt anything to get a 1GB,1GB,1GB, then say a 6 GB stick since I already have four 1s and could just replace one of them? These are the four sticks, all identical: Crucial Ballistix 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory.

Thanks

 

[OhSnapWord]

If you're going to upgrade the RAM, take out two of the 1GB modules and replace them with 2GB modules. If you have mismatched modules on a channel, the dual channel functionality wont work so well.