I want to buy more RAM.

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Bender[OO]

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Hello, I had a friend build me a computer particularly for handling newer games. The games look spectacular, but can sometimes lag a bit and be choppy, and have long loading screens. I was thinking this is all due to having only 512 mb of ram. So I want to buy another 512 mb stick. Would this even solve my problems?

The problem is I don't know what to buy or where to go. Do I hit the big stores like Future Shop, Best Buy, or do I go to the smaller shops in my area?

After reading the guide to ram I guess I should be buying DDR SDRAM. Here is a lot of information about my computer so you can help me out maybe.

-The motherboard- Gigabyte K8 Triton series nForce 4 motherboard

-The CPU- AMD Athlon 64 processor with hyper transport technology

-The graphics card- *I don't know if this matters*- XFX graphics card 256 mb

I don't know what the name of the RAM is that I have now but I know it has 512 Mb.

I am also afraid to open the case because I heard that a static shock could fry components. So if I buy the ram should I just take the risk and put it in myself or call Mr. T to do it for me. The last thing is that I am pretty broke so I don't want to spend more than 100 bucks on this new stick.

Thanks a lot I hope yall can help me. :D
 
Warning about places such as Future Shop:

Prices may seem attractive, but upgradability will be hard.
I'm not sure with Cicero and HP, but Dell uses special memory, sold by the manufacturer, that costs way more than what you can buy online at Tigerdirect.ca


I highly recommend getting a computer built for you, custom, at a store, or if you have the skills, build yourself.
 
The lag and choppiness is most likely due to having 512mb of ram, 1gb is ideal for gaming. ddr ram (like you thought) will work fine with that motherboard. I don't know too many places to buy it in Canada but I've heard that Canada Computers can be good. As far as installing it, installing memory is probably the easiest thing that you can do to a pc. If you've never done it before I'd call one of your tech friends and have him walk you through it so you know how to do it and become comfortable working inside of a pc.

What games are you trying to play, and can you tell us the exact model of your graphics card?
Here is a link to some ram that looks like it'll suit you:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=003463&cid=RAM.178
 
jorsoft03 said:
The lag and choppiness is most likely due to having 512mb of ram, 1gb is ideal for gaming. ddr ram (like you thought) will work fine with that motherboard. I don't know too many places to buy it in Canada but I've heard that Canada Computers can be good. As far as installing it, installing memory is probably the easiest thing that you can do to a pc. If you've never done it before I'd call one of your tech friends and have him walk you through it so you know how to do it and become comfortable working inside of a pc.

What games are you trying to play, and can you tell us the exact model of your graphics card?
Here is a link to some ram that looks like it'll suit you:
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=003463&cid=RAM.178

Thanks mate, my graphics card says gforce 6600 with nvidia beside it.

And the games I am playing at the moment are Half-Life 2 which is discouraging due to long loading, counter-strike source which works just fine, although It still takes a long time to switch between my desktop and the game-that really bugs me. Battlefield 2, Oblivion (which is choppy/laggy), and of course my number 1 game Starcraft which of course gives me no problems.
 
lol, starcraft :D

but ya, if you upgrade the ram you should be fine, 512 is pretty low for gaming (i had 512 for a while, WoW sucked until i upgraded to 2gb).

once you get that next 512 stick you should notice a huge difference.

-Phate
 
when u buy new ram, u dont want to use it with the old one because chances are its not the same thing. i'd suggest buying 2x512MB dual channel ram, and taking out the old ram. it should increase performance by alot.
 
dont really need to...

i bought a 1gb stick and added it to my existing 512mb stick, and it worked fine.

as long as its the same ***-pin lol, so u can plug it in.

othwerwise, it should work fine.

-Phate

P.S. good luck with gaming oblivion with 1gb ram lol
 
Phate said:
dont really need to...

i bought a 1gb stick and added it to my existing 512mb stick, and it worked fine.

as long as its the same ***-pin lol, so u can plug it in.

othwerwise, it should work fine.

-Phate

P.S. good luck with gaming oblivion with 1gb ram lol

Is there a way of checking out how many pins are in my current ram stick without opening the computer? How can I find out all the current information about it? Like I said before this computer was built for me so I don't know everything thats in it.

Is 1gb not enough ram to play Oblivion?

Thanks.
 
Athlon 64 systems all use ddr memory which is 184 pin, no other kind works. HL2 always had sort of long loading times, though that was on my old pc which was an Athlon XP 1800+ using pc133 ram, pretty slow stuff. It should be much faster with a gig of ddr.
As far as Oblivion, I wouldn't try playing it with less than 1gb, it'd be pretty crappy. I don't see why you'd need more with a decent system like yours, but remember that 2gb is great. If you want a ton of ram you could buy this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145486
The timings are okay and the price is very good, especially after the mail in rebate. Then you could sell the 512mb you've got now on ebay or something.
 
Awe just my luck, I'm on my way to some computer shops downtown and I'm on the highway and I just enter a tunnel, and start braking and then braking harder realizing that the cars have stopped, and then slam from behind someone hits my rear end. Just my luck...Anyways I didn't even get to go I was too upset, and still am.

Thanks for all the help people, that 2 x 1 gig sticks look great and at a great price, but I don't even have enough money for that. I checked out how much people are selling their old 512mb sticks..It doesn't seem like enough to even bother, plus I'm not sure if you have to pay ebay to start selling things. I'm gonna stick with getting another 512 mb stick. I'll keep my eye out for Corsair brand.
 
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