256 cheep ram or 128 good ram

[CandyKid]

I do not really want to spend that much money on ram.

I would like to overclock my FSB but i'm curious to where my greatest performance gain would be. For the most part good ram.. mushkin, crucial.. pc150 stuff.. is over one hundred dollars.

House Brand ram has gotten down to prices like 55 for 128 megs of pc133. Would i be better off with the two sticks of house brand ram (256 megs) or getting some nice ram and overclocking. The performance gain from 50 mhz isn't that great so i'd assume that the extra memory would be better.

Can anyone make a recommendation for some good ram known for it's reliablity running above 133 mhz that isn't outrageously expensive. Mushkin has some simeon infinieon memory for only 79 dollars. Go for that maybe?

Another question. Should you try to have the same type of ram 2 of the same chip.

 

[Ulysses]

A search would do you good.

First decide how much RAM you need - see this. Then see if you can afford or need the very high memory bus speed/low CL type RAM. There is a difference in performance between CAS 2 and CAS 3 RAM, but it is really not that much.

 

[AmdEmAll]

Always pay more for the best ram. You wont regret getting good high quality name brand ram. Check out www.memman.com , I bought Apacer (infineon) 128mb there. I do pc133 2-2-2. I blow everything away on the SiSoft memory bench. Well except the PIV.

 

[Dulanic]

Id go for some PC133 CLS2. If all you can afford is 128MB of the good stuff go for that. I think youll get more performance if you can bring your FSB a bit higher. Plus you can always add another stick of 128 later.

 

[JokerF15]

id go with 256 of pc133 cas 2!EDIT: make sure it is pc133 cas 2 /EDIT! i got some infineon ones!!!! WOW!!!! blow the $hitzz out of everything. my opinion is that 128 is not enough these days!

 

[Celstar]

joker, what the heck are you smoking...

I'd go with 256 MB of cheap ram. It's been shown many many times that your OS uses more than 128 megs, especially in win2k. I think you'd see better overall performance with more RAM than faster RAM.

 

[dcdomain]

Yeh I believe in the more RAM rather than higher quality RAM route. Just picked up another stick of 256mb. Dropped a dollar in one day. Is RAM going back down? Anyway 512mb of PC133mhz SDRAM in my system soon!

 

[EvilDonnyboy]

well how high do you plan on having your FSB? If now higher than 133, go with some 7.5 ns stuff(100@cas2, 133@cas3) and overclock it to 133@cas2. It'll barely stress the ram.

 

[Jhhnn]

You didn't get very far into your system specifics, or what you intend to do with your computer. Use the link that Ulysses posted, this is from people who want to sell you more RAM. Few of us will see much improvement with more than 128meg, that may not hold true with win2000.

In general, good RAM is worth the little bit extra that you spend, particularly when prices are incredibly low. Doesn't mean that you need to go all out, But some good cas2-133 from a quality vendor may allow you to overclock some, depends....Cheap stuff from unfamiliar vendors is always a gamble.

Just one guy's opinion.

 

[CandyKid]

I will be running win 2k
t bird 900
abit kt7 raid

I am getting the AIW radeon and plan to watch dvd's, play ut, diablo, and use photoshop.

I will overclock the clock mulitplier prolly till it doesn't post then i will bump up the fsb a lil so i don't think the fsb should get to high.. It didn't with my Ka7 and athlon.

I would imagine a cheep 256 chunk would work better then one of those "high rev" mushkin 128 chips.. but i could be wrong.

 

[odog]

you can get a 256mb stick of crucial PC133 for only $150 2 day shipping included.... it's CAS3 by default, but mine does CAS2 @140mhz

check this link.... it's a great deal imho for high quality ram. crucial 15% off

 

[dave127]

for that crucial 15% off, is the 15% already taken off of the price when you look at it, or is it taken off when you buy it??

 

[Diesel21]

Go for the 256 mb ram no doubt about it!

 

[Fumiup]

I vote 256 also

 

[joeryu]

win2k, even 256 isnt enough IMHO. definetely more the better with win2k

 

[JokerF15]

yea i wuz smoking something..i meant to say "make sure it is pc133 cas 2!! hehe not cas 3, thx for the heads up!

=)

 

[pdo]

Actually I jumped from 256 to 384 and notice no speed difference. I would go with 256 cheap RAM than 128 of the godd stuff but just make sure that the cheap stuff is compatible with the boards you're using.

 

[The Sauce]

I have always bought cheap ram and have never had problems with system stability or overclocking. At this point I'm pretty convinced its all pretty much the same stuff. Regardless, though, I would buy the cheap stuff now because you probably wont be keeping it for that much longer with DDR and Rambus taking over the higher end (yes, yes they are).