Im buying some new ram with my incredibly short budget. I have 512MB of DDR266 now and i dont knwo wehter to buy just a 512mB DDR400 and add it in, it will be slowed to DDR266 but i will have 1GB of ram. Or to trade in the old 512MBs of ram and use only 512MB of DDR400.
id go with the 1gb because of all the multitasking i do. i dont really play games but i bet you games like battlefield 2 will run a shit load better with the 1GB then the 512 even tho the 1gb is slower.
The DDR400 will give you a faster FSB (and dual channel), more than making up for the lack of ram. Don't listen to ali
512MB of RAM is very low if he's going to be gaming. Regardless of speed, I would recommend the 1GB. It's a hard situation though, save up more.
dual channel? with 1 stick? listen to hans, he knows what hes talking about :roll: what do you do on your computer anyway? that would help to know.
I do jsut about everything... from video editing, music synthesizing, instant messaging, imagine editing and design, gaming, lsitening to music, wathing movies, making movies, and so on
do the 1gb. If I were in your shoes though, I'd be grabbing another 512 of pc3200 to replace the pc2100 stick at the first opportunity.
I thought dual-channel mode only worked when DIMMs were installed in pairs. Plus, won't the RAM run at the speed of the lowest common denominator (PC2100)?
correct on both counts. that's why I suggested getting another stick of 3200 at the earliest convenience.
what processor do you have, if you CPU runs at DDR266, then putting DDR400 in there wont make any difference. If the CPU runs at DDR400, then having DDR266 is really crippling the CPU.
From what I understand, the Athlon XP benefits from having the RAM run synchronously with its FSB, which means that if the FSB is 166MHz (333MHz effective), the RAM should be running at that same frequency. Running the FSB and RAM asynchronously will most likely decrease performance. In your case, PC2700 is what you need, but since the price difference between PC2700 and 3200 is negligible, you should grab yourself a stick of 512MB. Just remember to run it 'n sync (no pun intended) with the FSB. The next step is getting rid of your PC2100 RAM (by selling it to some friend or something) and put all your change in a cup for a month or two. You should be able to buy another 512MB of memory then.
Since a lot of the tasks you are doing actually benefit from having a large amount of RAM, I would suggest buying the 512MB of DDR400 and running it at the DDR266 speed, and then replacing the DDR266 stick when you get more money.
Thanks for the help everyone i appreciate it. Ill be buying a stick of 512MB DDR400 and getting another one as soon as i can. my stick of ram will cost me 82$ plus 15% tax... rediculous in canada
JEEZ. Are you buying premium RAM or "value" stuff? where I shop for parts, you could get 512 of Corsair or Kingston's Value lines for $59.99. The generic stuff is $55.. maybe you should shop around a bit. If you live near toronto, check out CanadaComputers. Actually I believe their site is now a fully-fledged web-store, take a look. http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowHome
you gotta be kidding me. one of the programs I have, "Drumkits from Hell", requires more than a gig of RAM just to load. it doesn't matter if you have the fastest memory, all you need is about 1.5 gigs of RAM. size of memory and speed are two different things. personally I'd go with the 512MB one, but that's only because the two options have a noticeable difference in speed. if the 1 gig RAM was faster, perhaps a 333, I'd definately go with that.
I agree 100%, there is no arguement here when it comes to gaming, and some heavy software aplications.
