3 Questions about upping my ram.

[Spyker]

I'm looking to up my ram from a gig to two, because I've got a couple empty ram slots just taking up space, but I have a couple questions about it.

Using my alienware invoice I found out I have:
2x Samsung 512mb ddr2 pc4200 REV2

1. All DDR2 ram I've looked at lists speeds as PC2 (like PC2 3200, PC2 5300), my current ram however is only listed as PC4200; so just curious what not having the 2 after PC would mean.

2. I'm also curious about mixing brands and speeds, like if I get a 2x 512 DDR2 at PC2 8000 and/or by a different manufacturer, would that conflict with what I already have?

3. And just wondering which brands of RAM are generally considered to be the best? I've looked at G.Skill and Kingston, but I don't know if there are other brands I should be looking at or if one of the two aren't that great.

-Thanks

 

[Meithan]

1) Doesn't really matter, they sometimes just forget the "2". That's slow DDR2 RAM, tho. What are the timings? Try CPU-Z.

2) Different memory brands may cause problems, but could also work. However, getting higher speed RAM wouldn't be such a good idea, since the new, high-speed modules will downclock to match the slower ones. So you'll have to get PC4300 (533Mhz).

3) The good RAM brands that I know of are G.skill, Mushkin, Corsair, OCZ, Crucial and Kingston, in no particular order.