512 DDR Whats the deal?

[Village00idiot]

I have an 8k7a with currently 1 stick of 256 crucial pc2100 and with only one more slot available I think it would be a good idea to go for a 512 stick. As seen on pricewatch you can pick up a generic stick for like $60 then i thought the closest name brand to this was kingston at around $80 until I found this mushkin. Is this anygood? I noticed its mushkin basic, how big a difference does this make over the high rev. stuff? Is the generic good enough? Is another 256 crucial good enough? Or should I wait a little longer for the prices to drop?

Also what is the difference between pc1600, 2100, 2400, and 2700? Are they all compatible with my rig?

Lastly what are the risks of mixing ram like mushkin and crucial in my case?

Hope you guys can help me out! Thanks

 

[Village00idiot]

One last thing... Will crucial ever release a 512 DDR?

Thanks again.

 

[RSMemphis]

the numbers after PC concern the bandwidth in MB/s

PC1600 is good for a 100 MHz memory bus (you typically want the frequency on the memory and front side bus to be the same)
PC2100 is good for a 133 MHz bus (Athlon Cs and XPs)
PC2400 and beyond are currently just for overclockers - it means that you can easily overclock the memory bus, and if you have a PCI adjustment setting in your bios, you get one hell of a system...
Many people like mushkin, I have never used their memory so far.

You can mostly mix and match memory, although it is possible that some memory does not like other memory, especially generic & name-brand combos can be bad at times. Note that your memory will run at the slowest settings amongst all memory bars, so if you have PC1600 memory now, PC2100 does not make a lot of sense - then again, there is no real price difference between those two.

Getting anything higher than 2100 makes no sense for you unless you dump your old memory.

 

[Village00idiot]

bump

 

[anthrax]

I wouldn't break the bank just to get 512 Megs of ram...
256 is more than nuff ....ram prices will drop soon anyway....pc 1600, Pc 2100, Pc2400 , 2700, ...forgot what its to do with speed.....thruput...ie higher the faster speed.....PC 1600 runs at 100 MHz .......PC 2100 runs at 133MHz.....
PC .....


Standard PC 100 SD ram runs at 100^6( Ram Speed 100 MHz) X 64( 64 bit memory bus) = ~ 800 mb/s
Standard PC 133 SD ram runs at 133^6 X 64 = ~ 1050 mb/s
PC 1600 100^6 x 64 x 2(x2 coz it DDR) = ~ 1600 mb/s
PC 2100 133^6 x 64 x 2 = ~ 2100mb/s
(I might have got the calculation wrong thou..but you get the idea..)