Office Productivity	Source: Zdnet

Business Winstone 2004 runs real applications through a series of scripted activities and uses the time a PC takes to complete these activities to produce its performance scores.

Content Creation Winstone 2004 is a system-level, application-based benchmark that measures a PC's overall performance when running top, Windows-based, 32-bit, content creation applications in Windows XP.

Winstone: Office Productivity
Business Winstone 2004:	Points	Ranking
512MB System Memory	24.6
512MB System Memory 512MB ReadyBoost	24.8
512MB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	25
512MB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	25
512MB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	25
1GB System Memory	29.4
1GB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	29.5
1GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	29.5
1GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	29.5
2GB System Memory	29.6
2GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	29.6
2GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	29.6
4GB System Memory	29.5
4GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	29.6
Content Creation 2004:	Points	Ranking
512MB System Memory	35.5
512MB System Memory 512MB ReadyBoost	35.8
512MB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	36.1
512MB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	36.1
512MB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	36.1
1GB System Memory	40.6
1GB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	40.6
1GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	40.6
1GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	40.6
2GB System Memory	40.8
2GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	40.7
2GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	40.7
4GB System Memory	40.7
4GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	40.7

ReadyBoost makes a bit of a difference when the system has 512MB of memory, but it's nothing to write home about. If you're at the minimum end of PC infrastructure, ReadyBoost may make things a bit more bearable but you'd be better off upgrading system memory to at least 1GB RAM.

Futuremark PCMark05 1.1.0	Source: FutureMark

PCMark05 is a premium tool for measuring both normal home use and simple 3D performance of the latest PC hardware. There are 11 system tests - each one is designed to represent a certain type of PC usage. By running these tests, PCMark05 stresses the components in a similar manner as they are stressed in normal home usage.

PCMark05
Overall	Points	Ranking
512MB System Memory	7018
512MB System Memory 512MB ReadyBoost	7044
512MB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	7096
512MB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	7094
512MB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	7093
1GB System Memory	7265
1GB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	7282
1GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	7288
1GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	7285
2GB System Memory	7306
2GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	7315
2GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	7322
4GB System Memory	7312
4GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	7328
Memory	Points	Ranking
512MB System Memory	5233
512MB System Memory 512MB ReadyBoost	5286
512MB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	5312
512MB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	5346
512MB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	5334
1GB System Memory	5434
1GB System Memory 1GB ReadyBoost	5432
1GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	5441
1GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	5439
2GB System Memory	5452
2GB System Memory 2GB ReadyBoost	5438
2GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	5455
4GB System Memory	5433
4GB System Memory 4GB ReadyBoost	5446

The PCMark05 numbers show that ReadyBoost does little to nothing for this type of test. Memory scores with 512MB of system memory do inch up ever so slightly, but it's not able to match the other memory sizes.