2GB to 4GB on XP?
I know XP Home will only use 3GB of memory or something, but I currently have 2GB. Anyone go to 4GB and find it helped the overall performance of Windows and games? Only asking if it's worth it since RAM is so cheap right now...

I went from 2 to 4Gb on my Dell Dimension 9200 Quad core (I only see 3Gb), mainly because RAM is so cheap ( a 2Gb kit cost me $55) and I can always use more RAM for VMWare. The 3Gb limit is not Windows, it's the Intel 32bit architecture. You can't address more than 4Gb in 32bits, but the problem is that some of your hardware also maps into that 32bit address space (like your video card). Windows 32Bit (XP or Vista) reserves 1 Gb for hardware. For the average person running XP you're not going to see any real improvement unless you have a very RAM hungry app you use like VMWare or you work in very large and complex Photoshop images. Doing anything other than VMWare I rarely use more than 1Gb (I have a memory usage meter running all the time). Any game out now runs fine with 2Gb. Now that said, if you're running Vista then the extra memory will be a bit more helpful. Nothing startling but in addition to being a memory hog, Vista's memory model is also very different than XP. Vista will use all available RAM even if programs aren't specifically using it. It uses any unassigned RAM to do caching. In my case, it was a no brainer since I use VMWare and do a few other power user things that can sometimes benefit from more than 2Gb. Also, I can always pull those 2 extra sticks and put them in something else some day and still have a nicely loaded 2Gb PC.