upgrading questions

[johnthundercorn]

I am thinking about upgrading from my xp2400, 768mb pc2100 (256pny,512 crucial) to a barton xp3200 and 2gigs(1gb x 2..dual channel) of corsair xms pro pc3200. Right now I have an asus a7n8x-e deluxe with 6600gt and I am wondering if I will have enough of a performance increase in games like hl2 and bf2 to justify spending around $400 to run at 400fsb with all the extra memory. I am hoping to stay with this setup for about 1 1/2-2 years before i move to 64bit.

ALSO: a small question about memory specs..i have heard that cs latency for amd cpus should be 2.5 and not 2 or else it is bad for your computer or something...does it really matter when it comes down to price whether or not to get 3 instead of 2 and vice versa?? also memory timings: is there a specific number that i need to look for when it comes to my mobo+playing games+processor (ex: 3-3-3-8<--what does it mean)? Any feedback is greatly appreciated!! thanks

 

[Powerslave]

You don't need 2gb of ram, not for awhile.

 

[johnthundercorn]

ok, if that is the case then would it be better to get 1 stick of corsair pc3200 1gb now and get another stick when i move to 64bit or get 2x512 corsair pc3200 now in dual channel or do you get the same performance with the 512x2 dual channel as compared to 1gb single channel? hope that wasnt confusing..thanks

 

[Hacp]

Are you planning on overclocking? If you are, get some G.skill value ram. They can get to 250 at lower timings. I don't think timings matter as much as bus speeds in AMD XP systems. Also, I don't think your board supports dual channel mode, so don't worry about dual channel kits.(ps, if your not planning on ocing, that xms ram is uneeded)

 

[johnthundercorn]

currently i am not overclocking my system but i would like to have that option when newer games come out in 6-12 months. Looking in my manual it says that i am able to run in dual channel but again i dont know if 2 small memory sticks are better than just one big one. also, is there really a big difference between xms memory and the value memory for 80 bucks? thanks for the feedback

 

[GameGURU]

XMS is made for overclocking, it has a higher CAS latency and better timings. Value is not for overclocking and is made more for the...well the value systems. If you DO plan on overclocking eventually then you will want the XMS or something similar, such as OCZ Gold Series.

 

[Hacp]

Gskill value is known to be raised to half decent fsbs at low voltages with loose timings.
Get the 100 dollar GSkill value ram.