RAM - Qty or Speed
 

1st Post...

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What would you prefer, 512MB 2700 or 1024MB 2100???

512 2700. Speed is critical, especially with ram (assuming a matching CPU).

Agreed!
512 is well enuff to run the rig smoothly, and ofcourse, faster...:p

512 as I have yet to have a need for 1 GIG

Not to mention only XP/2K will be able to see anything over 512(or was it 384...).

ok, glad someone asked about this. i had a question, somewhat on-topic about my computer.

running an xp 2000+, radeon 9700 128mb, and 256mb pny 2100 ddr (i had to be cheap on the ram at the time). running all 7200rpm drives. i know i run a lot of stuff, but the machine is slow as hell . i mean, horrifying. half-life mods are slow to load, as are other games, not to mention ut2003 (god-awful). ut2003 plays pretty bad too, unless i trim it down to 800x600 low graphics, and run tweak-xp pro to optimize the ram first. i was planning on *hopefully* dropping in another 256mb 2100 chip, but would that make it run significantly faster? i've never run more than 512mb in any of my machines, and that keeps it happy. just been running a little low on the ddr side of things. 512mb seemed to keep my machine pretty happy with my 1ghz duron, almost happier at times than the 2000+, and only running an old-skool radeon 64mb vivo.
:confused:

thanks, hope it's not too off-topic.

if u run winxp, then the difference between 256 and 512 is huge. rtcw maps load 1/3 faster etc... u shouldn't notice any increase in fps, but load times will be much faster, and in windows the computer will respond to user input alot faster. try and u shall c.

glad to hear that :)

i didn't want to go out and spend the scrill really for more than 256mb right now :) i figure combine that with a reinstall, i should be good to go. and a lot faster than my 1ghz setup was :) (especially now that i'm out of my little duron hell... not that they're bad tho. i just wanted more of a 'man's' proc)

For most apps & games nowadays, 512mb is the minimum for good performance, in my opinion. It also depends on what software you're running.

Battlefield 1942 is a good example, although a bit higher in mem usage than most games. The maps load up faster on my 950 Athlon with 1G pc133 SDRAM compared to my P4 1.6@2.13GHz with 512 DDR running at 354Mhz. But once in the game, it runs a lot better on the P4 (which will see another 512mb when the $$ comes ;) )

I personally like to have more RAM than I need, and like minimizing swap file size & useage.

the other thing with 1gb is that most boards won't oc as well as they would with just one stick of ram, and if you used 1x 1gb stick, they oc very poorly as well

threw the other 256mb in the machine... made night-and-day difference. instead of cranking down the neat stuff in ut2003 and running at 800x600, i turned up everything and am running at 1280x1024, runs as it should :)

haven't tried 1600 yet, but i should.

thanks for the tipz