Ram advice fro high perf system

guernseynick · 03-29-2005, 12:16 AM

I am building a system with a AA8XE abit fatal1ty, X700 256 pro and a 3.2 p4 processor. I am not sure on my RAM however. At the moment i have opted for two kingmax dual 512's Pc2 240 pin 533MHz 4300's for around £100. I have a highly OCable mainboard and good processor and GPU.

Should I get 512Mb of more overclockable/expensive ram for the same price as the 2 dual budget 1Gb(and perhaps upgrade the expensive ram at a later date) kingmax's as my budget cannot stretch to two high performance sticks right now.

Will the budget ram i am thinking of buying affect the performance/overclockability of the PC and if i get the 512 expensive ram will i have trouble finding the same stick at a later date? Would the single stick suffice and not have to be updated if it is of high quality but i do have high perf components and will be running games such as half life etc

would the 512 of quality ram have the same potential as the 1Gb of value ram?

basicaly which would be the best option in my situation?

Would be grateful for ram reccomendations (of DDR2 Pc2 4300 533 240 pin) in either a single quality 512 or a dual pair.....budget cant realy stretch much over £100

Many thanx Nick B

mrmcdawg · 03-29-2005, 02:36 AM

Quote:

Will the budget ram i am thinking of buying affect the performance/overclockability of the PC and if i get the 512 expensive ram will i have trouble finding the same stick at a later date?

The ram will only run at the speed of the bad ram. Yes, your overclockability will be ruined by the budget ram as long as it's in there. No, you shouldn't have trouble finding the same stick at a later date, as long as it's not an unreasonably long amount of time (maybe 1.5-2yrs max? not sure).

Quote:

would the 512 of quality ram have the same potential as the 1Gb of value ram?

Depends what you're doing. If you're gaming, the games will load faster, and in general, for low memory requirement applications, the 512 good ram will be better. However, if you like multitasking heavily (for instance I sometimes play 2 games at once) or do lots of stuff on photoshop etc. then the 1gig cheap ram will be way more worth it.

As soon as your ram gets filled to the max with application data, you're computer will begin to slow down immensly, because it has to wait to add more stuff to ram until other stuff has left... otherwise it is reading from the HD which is way slower than ram (someone correct me if i'm not exactly right).

What this means is that if you tend to do a lot of things at once, 512mb will slow you down way too much. But for most people, it is fine. I would suggest going with the 512 and upgrading later. Do you really need a gig of ram?

guernseynick · 03-29-2005, 09:21 AM

thanx for the reply.
Much appreciated
I forgot to ask should i get dual quality 256's as my board has 4 slots?

kof2000 · 03-29-2005, 11:11 AM

if there's dual channel slots.

**Praetor** · 03-29-2005, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Should I get 512Mb of more overclockable/expensive ram for the same price as the 2 dual budget 1Gb(and perhaps upgrade the expensive ram at a later date) kingmax's as my budget cannot stretch to two high performance sticks right now.

Depends if u intend to overclock....

Quote:

would the 512 of quality ram have the same potential as the 1Gb of value ram?

Define "potential"

Quote:

I forgot to ask should I get dual quality 256's as my board has 4 slots?

If you max out the slots, the clock will drop a notch

03-29-2005, 12:16 AM	#1 (permalink)
guernseynick Bronze Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 48	Ram advice fro high perf system I am building a system with a AA8XE abit fatal1ty, X700 256 pro and a 3.2 p4 processor. I am not sure on my RAM however. At the moment i have opted for two kingmax dual 512's Pc2 240 pin 533MHz 4300's for around £100. I have a highly OCable mainboard and good processor and GPU. Should I get 512Mb of more overclockable/expensive ram for the same price as the 2 dual budget 1Gb(and perhaps upgrade the expensive ram at a later date) kingmax's as my budget cannot stretch to two high performance sticks right now. Will the budget ram i am thinking of buying affect the performance/overclockability of the PC and if i get the 512 expensive ram will i have trouble finding the same stick at a later date? Would the single stick suffice and not have to be updated if it is of high quality but i do have high perf components and will be running games such as half life etc would the 512 of quality ram have the same potential as the 1Gb of value ram? basicaly which would be the best option in my situation? Would be grateful for ram reccomendations (of DDR2 Pc2 4300 533 240 pin) in either a single quality 512 or a dual pair.....budget cant realy stretch much over £100 Many thanx Nick B

03-29-2005, 11:11 AM	#4 (permalink)
kof2000 Diamond Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Oahu Age: 26 Posts: 6,273	if there's dual channel slots. __________________ QX9650@4.2 swiftech \|9600@3.0 9700 nt 780i \| 790fx 8gb ddr1200 \| 8gb ddr1200 2x150gb 3x1tb \|2x250gb 3x8800gtx \|3x2900xt 1gb 2x20xdvdrw \|2x20xdvdrw 15in1 card reader \|15in1 card reader ng15/g9 \|ng15/g9 1200w psu \|1200w psu 2x28" LCD \|2x28" LCD

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03-29-2005, 09:21 AM	#3 (permalink)
guernseynick Bronze Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 48	thanx for the reply. Much appreciated I forgot to ask should i get dual quality 256's as my board has 4 slots?