Memory suggestion for dual channel mobo

[gf4200isdabest]

When i bought my MSI K8N motherboard I didn't realize that it only supported 1,2 or 4 sticks of RAM in at once. In turn, I had to remove one of my sticks of 512MB Corsair XMS pc3200 RAM. I've noticed a slowdown in certain areas in performance and rather than stay at 1GB, I've decided to upgrade to 2GB.

I've had the Corsair XMS RAM for a long time so I haven't really had any experience with average cheap RAM. That said, I see a lot of pc3200 (DDR400) sticks in the 35-60 dollar price range and I wanted to know whether it's a waste of money to buy Corsair XMS. I don't run my computer overclocked but I also absolutely loathe instability (i usually only reset it once every month or so)...

1) I've heard that sticks of RAM that are different can cause instability issues. Is this a theoretical concern or one I'm likely to observe if I buy some of the cheaper RAM?

2) Would a non overclocker see any real improvement in system performance buying 4xCorsair XMS versus 3xCorsair XMS + 1xCheap 512 stick?

Current system running:
Athlon64 3200+ Winchester
MSI K8N Neo4
XFX 6600GT
2x 512MB Corsair XMS pc3200

 

[Brian48]

I think your gig of pc3200 is just fine.

 

[ArnoldLayne]

You'll take a performance hit to run 4 sticks.

 

[gf4200isdabest]

I seem to notice a slowdown when alt tabbing if i have a lot of things running, that's why i wanted to move up from 1GB...that and I don't like having that 512MB stick doing nothing.

What kind of performance hit occurs when using 4 sticks of RAM?

 

[ArnoldLayne]

Originally posted by: gf4200isdabest
I seem to notice a slowdown when alt tabbing if i have a lot of things running, that's why i wanted to move up from 1GB...that and I don't like having that 512MB stick doing nothing.

What kind of performance hit occurs when using 4 sticks of RAM?

You should be able to tell from the performance tab of the task manager if you're running out of RAM and paging to disk. Beyond that you can look at the system monitor and performance counters. It may be that the best solution here is just running fewer applications at once.

Even if you put in 4 sticks of XMS, your processor's memory controller will only run it at DDR333 (assuming your RAM is double-sided) instead of DDR400 and 2T command rate instead of 1T. Why buy XMS if you are going to run it like that? In other words, you'll take an X% hit at any amount of memory usage in order to run with 4 sticks. In general even two 1GB sticks will run at slower timings than 2 512MB sticks. 4x512MB is worse yet.

It's possible you still would be better off with 4x512MB due to your particular mix of application usage, but I am pointing out the hit you will take due to the A64 only supporting 4 DDR sticks at slower timings. You could also consider buying 2 1GB sticks and selling the RAM you have.