What should I upgrade to for $150?

[Zampfeo]

I have no idea what you mean by heavy datasets or why you think HnH requires any multitasking, so feel free to elaborate on that bit.

Your CPU isn't great, but it's fine. It's a mobile CPU, so I assume you have a laptop, so you can't upgrade it anyway.

Open up task manager(ctrl+shift+esc) and take a look at your memory usage. Chances are, your're utilizing almost all of it. 4GB is low by today's standards. 6GB is acceptable for web browsing. 8GB is where you want to be at a minimum if you're doing more than that. Buy a 4GB stick to add to your computer. Look in the computer itself to see what type and how many are supported. Judging by your CPU, it's probably DDR3L 1333.

A 4GB stick of DDR3L 1333 will cost you a little over $20. With the rest, buy an SSD. $130 will get you a 480GB SandDisk.

[shubla]

Otherwise, yes, there is a shortage on RAM chips being manufactured. It's been in the tech news the last few months, and new part prices have gone up as a result. (IIRC, something about a shortage in supply for a material in the glue used.)(edit: searched up "supply shortage raises RAM prices... got several articles talking about several issues)

On new ram chips maybe. But they probably got shitton of the old ones in storage. Some laptop ddr3 which OP probably needs.

[MagicManICT]

I have no idea what you mean by heavy datasets or why you think HnH requires any multitasking, so feel free to elaborate on that bit.

If you want to run the data crunch in the background, and play Haven while it's processing, you need the extra RAM to keep them both running. Even a dual core processor won't have issues with this as long as there's plenty of RAM. It's exactly why you worry about multitasking, though, and make sure you mention it as a part of your computing needs. However, these bottom tier "laptop" processors don't have the cache the Intel Core processors do, and so processing is will be significantly slower. Like you say, though, sockets on these Pentium chips and the iCore usually are different, upgrade options may be available, dependent on the hardware manufacturer (motherboard/computer).

On new ram chips maybe. But they probably got shitton of the old ones in storage. Some laptop ddr3 which OP probably needs.

Aye, my point on Granger's post about the new DDR4 2333 RAM. Glad we agree!