1,5 Gig of RAM-Ok or not?

[abrodski]

Hello!

I have XP Pro with 512 MB of Kingston DDR (the old one...NOT DDR2) 400 CL3 RAM installed.I ordered another module of 1 GB...So my question is...the fact that I would be using 2 modules-one 512 MB and another is 1 GB...is it OK?
Or ...would it be better just to GET RID of 512 MB module and just use one stick of 1 GB instead?

 

[somethingsketchy]

Ideally you should pair them (same memory size, same speed), so your motherboard will treat them the same. If one stick is slower than the other, then the motherboard will operate both sticks of memory at the slower speed. 1.5 GB is do-able, however you may notice a performance hit.

All depends on what you do with the PC.

 

[taltamir]

it will not be as fast as having a matched pair... however, you could always pay more to get something faster, you could get even more ram, you could replace the entire computer, and so on.
there is nothing WRONG with what you are doing though, and the speed increase of going from 0.5 to 1.5 should be significant

 

[Blain]

If he's running a MB with an 845 or older chipset "dual channel" isn't an issue.
Dual channel came in on the 865 chipsets and later.
I think there may be too many assumptions being made, given the limited information provided.

BTW, Check a site like Crucial to make sure you can actually run a 1GB DIMM (too late on this one).

 

[taltamir]

eh, we both said its not really an issue even with dual channel.
without it there is no difference whatsoever.

 

[abrodski]

I play games...like I have FarCry, and I want play Crysis.
I also have 2 servers-HTTP-Apache and SMTP-hMailServer.Plus MySQL db as daemons...
I have AMD64-3000+....mo-bo-Gigabyte...SATA-I.
Each stick would have the same speed-400MHz...it's only SIZE differs.
Why would I check Crucial site, if I ordered Kingston ( here they don't import Crucial).
What there's to check? I have mo-bo's manual...its all there...plus how come I won't be able to use 1 GB stick of RAM?