RAM upgrading. What would you do?

[Jayce]

I have 4 RAM channels on my mobo. I already have two sticks of 512 ram. What would you do to get to 2 gb RAM?

A: Get an additional set of 512 mb sticks.

B: Get a single 1 gb stick, allowing a free channel for upgrades later.

Thing is, if I later decide to upgrade BEYOND two gb and I have four 512 sticks, then I'll have to literally ditch some of the chips to provide space for additional, higher capacity sticks. Meh.

Just looking for opinions.

The (2) 512 route: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440

The (1) 1 gb route: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145505

 

[turtile]

2x 512MB sticks

 

[Riceball]

I would probably go with the 1GB stick because you'll have room to upgrade in the future

 

[PZEROFGH]

if you have s939 go with the 2*512, if you dont buy another 1GB set...

and if you go with 4*512 windows doesnt like anymore then that so by the time vista comes out you will need a whole system makeover and you would ditch that ram and go with M2 socket with DDR2

 

[Jayce]

if you have s939 go with the 2*512, if you dont buy another 1GB set...

and if you go with 4*512 windows doesnt like anymore then that so by the time vista comes out you will need a whole system makeover and you would ditch that ram and go with M2 socket with DDR2

I'm not too familiar with what Vista is, I've heard it off and on but never had much interest to question it.

The advantage is, if I wanted to go to 3 gb later then I have the means to do that, because that would set me at two 1gb sticks and a pair of 512 sticks. Not too sure if I'll do that, been changing my mind a lot as it is... we'll see how 2 gb goes first.

So you'd personally go with 4*512? One thing I gotta keep reminding myself is it's 12 bucks more to go with the single 1 gb stick vs the pair of 512s, so it's not like I'm missing out much by going one route than the other.

Would Windows react the same speed wise when comparing the two situations? (4*512 vs 2*512/1*1024)

 

[gaara]

Depends on what processor you've got operating...if you have an AMD64 prior to Revision E cores (eg Clawhammer, Newcastle, Winchester) your memory controller cannot handle the use of four DIMM slots at 400MHz and will underclock the memory to 333MHz

If you do have a RevE core...I suggest you buy the 2*512MB and continue to take advantage of the dual channel abilities of your memory bus...I will tell you now you will not need more than 2GB for at the very least one year if not more, and furthermore as noted WindowsXP simply does not handle more than 2GB very well, in addition to having a peak memory usage of 4Gb including physical RAM and virtual memory

Basically what I'm saying is you don't need to worry about adding any more memory for a very long time, by which time not only will DDR400 be obsolete, but the entire DDR1 platform altogether

 

[Jayce]

I've got a s939 3000+ Venice, 64 bit.

I've got Windows XP Home.

I've got a pair of 512 DDR400 sticks.

Thing is if Windows doesn't really like anything more than 2gb/four sticks, maybe it'd be smart to go to 2gb BUT retain three sticks? (aka, getting the 1gb stick)..

Gaara, what would you get... not too sure since you didn't mention Venice anywhere. Would my memory controller be okay?

 

[gaara]

Venice is a RevE core therefore it will support four DIMM slots operating at 200MHz (but I believe they'll operate at command rate 2T)...so what I would do is buy two more 512MB sticks

I think you mixed up what I said...Windows has no problem running all four DIMM slots, that's a problem specific to pre-RevE memory controllers which isn't an issue to worry yourself with...what I was saying is the fact that Windows doesn't handle large amounts of memory very well and anything over 2GB will actually degrade performance

 

[Jayce]

What I'm a little confused over is, isn't your typical DDR ram supposed to run at 400? Not 200?

 

[Camden]

Some systems "lag" if the ram's too mixed up. Though what in the hell do you need 3+ gigs for? Lol. My dad's business network hardly uses 2.

4x 512 mb sticks will probably run a lot smoother