Need a gig of ram

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
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I would recommend the following stick of memory:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141062

These are my reasons for it:

First of all, your board runs on the PC2 6400 standard, by going with this memory, you would remain in spec.

Second, this memory is not much more expensive than the memory of the next speed grade down, so there is no reason not to get it versus saving some cash on slower memory.

Thirdly, it is PQI brand. PQI is known as a quality brand, so you can be assured that you will have no problems.

Fourth, I suggest this one 1GB stick instead of getting two 512MB sticks as 512MB sticks are pretty much out of date. If you purchased a single 1GB stick, you would still have three more memory slots to upgrade later on to. Also, the performance lost from going with single channel at least temporarily is not significant.
 

Xarick

Golden Member
May 17, 2006
1,199
1
76
It will likely be a good 6 months before I can add another stick.. so no dual channel?
Also 533 vs 800? 800 going to yield better performance? I noticed most 800s are 5 cas vs 533s 4 cas.
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
Originally posted by: Xarick
It will likely be a good 6 months before I can add another stick.. so no dual channel?
Also 533 vs 800? 800 going to yield better performance? I noticed most 800s are 5 cas vs 533s 4 cas.

Do not worry about the memory timings so much. The performance differences are negligible. I would get a single stick for now rather than two. The performance difference between dual channel and single is very small. The performance difference between DDR2 533 and DDR2 800 would also probably be small, but I would get the 800 for the sole reason of it being the correct speed for your platform.

The problem is, if you got two sticks of 512, then you wanted to upgrade memory, you would only have two slots remaining. If you wanted to max out your motherboard, you would have to get rid of your two 512 sticks somehow and buy some more 1GB sticks. By going with a single 1GB stick in the first place, you do not have to worry about the "small" 512 sticks later.