I need some help buying RAM

[Salvador]

I've been looking at some PC3200 DDR400 RAM to put into an Athlon 64 socket 754 system. I've been told to look at Corsair XMS, but when I go to Newegg, I see 1 gb of PC3200 Corsair in several different flavors with not that much difference in price between them. One set was $240 and the other was around $250. What's the difference? What should I look for?

The other question is that I know that 1gb of (2 x 512) for $250 might be overkill for my current rig, but I'm thinking of adding it to a socket 939 system down the road. Should I buy what I need now for the current board or be looking for the future with this RAM?

TIA,

Sal

 

[blackinches]

if you don't plan on overclocking just get the value corsair or mushkin pc3200 ram. it'll be fine.

 

[gamerj]

The difference is most likely the timings of the ram, for instance 3,4,4, 8

3 = cas latency
4 =trcd
4= trp
8 = tras

The lower the numbers, the better...so lower numbers > more expensive...

But if your not benching all the time, or overclocking... i doubt you will ever notice the difference...

p.s: you should definately get 2 sticks of 512 mb (1024 mb total),regardless of what board u are gonna use, its considered standard now...any less would not be all that great...
Make sure u get two identical sticks...that way if you ever get a socket 939 board, the sticks will run in dual channel mode....

And indeed, pc3200 (speed is than 400 mhz) is best suited for your system...again, if your not overclocking much...u could overclock with that ram though,,...but not to the extremes...

 

[Salvador]

So, basically the lower the timing of the numbers, the speed of the RAM (PC3200, etc) and the fact that the sticks are matched account for the price? That makes sense. I'll have to look for the timing numbers.

Is there RAM that kind of splits the middle as far as timing? I'd like something that will upgrade to socket 939 board and let me do a little overclocking. I don't need extreme overclocking capabilities though.

Sal