mtm87tx
Member
+0|6934
Im about to buy 2x1gb sticks of ram for my computer what is the best for the money? what brands are good and is there certain ones not compatible with my mobo?

i have a asus P4P800 now and im upgrading to a PCI-E board.

please give links! what is all this talk about timing and whats the best? im not knowledgable about ram
34766
Member
+0|7034
Cosair is a really good brand for Ram...
sixshot
Decepticon Geek
+50|6962|Planet Seibertron ;)

mtm87tx wrote:

Im about to buy 2x1gb sticks of ram for my computer what is the best for the money? what brands are good and is there certain ones not compatible with my mobo?

i have a asus P4P800 now and im upgrading to a PCI-E board.

please give links! what is all this talk about timing and whats the best? im not knowledgable about ram
RAM timings is just the technical side of things.  Personally one should not worry much about it as the performance benefits from better timing is very very small.  To get better timings equates to spending more.  The timing talk is also related to overclocking, something that I doubt you'll be doing (unless corrected otherwise).  Usually people who tend to overclock their CPU would have some form of knowledge about RAM timings.  So it kinda complements each other.

As for what's best, go with brand name known to be reputable -- Crucial, Corsair, Mushkin, Patriot, Kingston, Geil, OCZ, G.Skill, Gigaram (unconfirmed; own a pair; no issues yet).  If any, go with whatever is the cheapest of the bunch and do not factor in RAM timing.

I suggest taking a glimpse at Newegg, and use "184-pin DDR SDRAM" for Type and "2GB (2 x 1GB)" for Capacity as search criterias.  This'll narrow your selection down to just 2GB kits in that particular category.  Virtually any of the memory kits listed made by the companies listed above will work out fine.

You can also take a look through here and here to find the RAM you seek.  It should help you narrow down your search as well as compare the prices with other competing stores.
GuestHead
Member
+2|6906
I just bought 2 gigs (2x 1024) of patriot pc3200 for $160ish.  Pretty good deal.  You need to figure out what kind your board supports though.  If you find the board on newegg it will tell you in the product description.

As has been said before, timing isn't all that important.  Just make sure you get the same speed (or type if that's how you want to think of it).  If you buy pc3200 and your board is designed for something else....no worko.
AnarkyXtra
BF2s EU Server Admin
+67|7073|Hanging onto the UAV
As has been mentioned earlier, Corsair are a pretty good, value-for-money brand.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,056|7058|PNW

I have a suggestion, and it's about the best straight-up DDR you'll ever buy.

Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO (2x1GB DIMM) 2-3-2-6 timing.

You can get it on newegg.com for $300. Note that you should only have two sticks in your system for optimum performance (even if there are four slots). If you already knew that, well...then other people will, too.

Slightly cheaper, by around $80 (last time I looked), are the Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2PRO (2x1GB DIMM) 2-3-3-6.

I think you'll find that most people will recommend Corsair, including ASUS. You can always get OCZ's, but Corsair seems to have the best reviews.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-03-14 02:30:21)

Mr.Pieeater
Member
+116|6910|Cherry Pie
I bought 4 Gigs of Corsair from www.newegg.com when I built my computer 3 months ago.  They were about $90 a stick, it works great!  You probably only need 2 Gigs if you are interested only in BF2 though.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,056|7058|PNW

Mr.Pieeater wrote:

I bought 4 Gigs of Corsair from www.newegg.com when I built my computer 3 months ago.  They were about $90 a stick, it works great!  You probably only need 2 Gigs if you are interested only in BF2 though.
Not to mention that 4 sticks will actually cause dual channel to slow down.
Teamsreth
Complete Tanker
+17|7129|England

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Mr.Pieeater wrote:

I bought 4 Gigs of Corsair from www.newegg.com when I built my computer 3 months ago.  They were about $90 a stick, it works great!  You probably only need 2 Gigs if you are interested only in BF2 though.
Not to mention that 4 sticks will actually cause dual channel to slow down.
So is it better to run 2 x 1Gb, or 4 x 1Gb? Does the extra capacity make up for any slowing down?
Viper007Bond
Moderator Emeritus
+236|7092|Portland, OR, USA

I love my OCZ.

And 4 gigs is overkill and a waste of money IMO. Not to mention that many mobos run 4 gigs much slower than they would with 3 or whatever. I have 4x512 and I have to actually TRY to use it all.
https://bf3s.com/sigs/044900892044e7fc95e599e832a086ae9bcd7efb.png
-=|BW|=-Hollow_Moon
Member
+5|7041
Im going for 4 gigabytes on my new cmputer

Because Overkill is just a word & the way 3D graphics applications eat it I need every drop of memory I can squeeze onto the board

[Plus the improved loading times on BF2 clinches the deal ]
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,056|7058|PNW

Teamsreth wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Mr.Pieeater wrote:

I bought 4 Gigs of Corsair from www.newegg.com when I built my computer 3 months ago.  They were about $90 a stick, it works great!  You probably only need 2 Gigs if you are interested only in BF2 though.
Not to mention that 4 sticks will actually cause dual channel to slow down.
So is it better to run 2 x 1Gb, or 4 x 1Gb? Does the extra capacity make up for any slowing down?
The only way I'd go for 4 GB is if I could find a pair of 2 GB sticks that had timings as low as 2-3-2-6, or if I could find a motherboard that was able to run four sticks at full speed. I like lots of memory, but I also recognize that speed, at times, can be better than capacity...at least in the world of gaming. As it is right now, though, you'll be hard-pressed to find 2 GB sticks that aren't registered ECC.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-03-18 11:10:32)

dh124289
Anything but what it is now!
+11|6963
Is there an upper limit to the amount of RAM that windows XP can interpret/use?

I have 3 x DIMMs in my machine, 2 x 1GB & 1 x 512MB.

My mobo detects the full 2.5GB of RAM at startup but XP says I only have 2GB.

However I found a cool memory monitoring program called maxmem which runs in the background, and has a wee icon in the systray with a graph of available RAM. This always shows as 100%, unless I'm playing BF2 or using video editing software, in which case it dips to 70-80%.

So it looks to me as if XP can use the full RAM in my system but can't list it correctly if you know what I mean. But I could be wrong..
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,056|7058|PNW

dh124289 wrote:

Is there an upper limit to the amount of RAM that windows XP can interpret/use?

I have 3 x DIMMs in my machine, 2 x 1GB & 1 x 512MB.

My mobo detects the full 2.5GB of RAM at startup but XP says I only have 2GB.

However I found a cool memory monitoring program called maxmem which runs in the background, and has a wee icon in the systray with a graph of available RAM. This always shows as 100%, unless I'm playing BF2 or using video editing software, in which case it dips to 70-80%.

So it looks to me as if XP can use the full RAM in my system but can't list it correctly if you know what I mean. But I could be wrong..
There is some confusion as to whether XP Pro can detect more than XP Home, but I've never tried to put any more than 2GB in any of these systems. XP Pro 64 will detect more than 2GB, but Wow64 emulator does not guarantee that you can use your older apps.

I heavily recommend that you take out the single 512MB stick, for performance sake.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-03-18 11:42:51)

jnick
Member
+22|7068

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