Best mem for my comp.

DubbDesigns
10+ year member

CarAudio.com Veteran
I want to upgrade to a GB or atleast 512 (from 256) and I want a great stick for a low price.

My MB is a ASROCK K7S41GX I have PC2700 in it right now. AMD Athlon 2400XP

Need more ram to run GTA San Andreas faster and to run photoshop and all my other programs a bit quicker.

I have an Nvidia GeForce4 Graphic card and running XP Pro SP2 if that info is needed as well.

 
Wow, your PC sucks. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

Kingston Value Ram. Buy two identical 512mb sticks instead of one 1gb stick for the dual channel ability (word: twice as fast). Should be in the $80 range.

 
Well unless you plan on overclocking the bus speed then there is no sense on you getting anything higher than PC2700 or PC3200. Just get a reputable brand like Corsair, Crucial, kingston, or Mushkin and you will be straight. Get 1GB while your at it.

 
Wow, your PC sucks. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
Kingston Value Ram. Buy two identical 512mb sticks instead of one 1gb stick for the dual channel ability (word: twice as fast). Should be in the $80 range.
You can't get dual channel from a non-dual channel motherboard. So buying one or 2 won't make a difference. Dual channel memory is handled by the motherboard. His is too old for this feature.

 
You can't get dual channel from a non-dual channel motherboard. So buying one or 2 won't make a difference. Dual channel memory is handled by the motherboard. His is too old for this feature.
The board isn't that old is it? It has two slots. It was manufactured Dec 2003. It's been a pretty reliable computer, best one I had so far. Need to make it lil faster tho.

 
The board isn't that old is it? It has two slots. It was manufactured Dec 2003. It's been a pretty reliable computer, best one I had so far. Need to make it lil faster tho.
the northbridge chip it uses is older tech. It is only rated by MFG to a 333 bus. BTW 2003 is 3 years old like mkost of the other components in your rig. In the computer industry thats old //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Trust me, I looked up your mobo specs and it doesn't support dual channel ram and isn't a barnstormer.

 
the northbridge chip it uses is older tech. It is only rated by MFG to a 333 bus. BTW 2003 is 3 years old like mkost of the other components in your rig. In the computer industry thats old //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Trust me, I looked up your mobo specs and it doesn't support dual channel ram and isn't a barnstormer.
Why do they have 2 DDR slots if they can not support dual channel ram that seems pointless.

So will I be able to tell alot of difference when switching to a GB? I want to be able to play San Andreas on high quality rather than low, as I am righ now.

 
Why do they have 2 DDR slots if they can not support dual channel ram that seems pointless.
So will I be able to tell alot of difference when switching to a GB? I want to be able to play San Andreas on high quality rather than low, as I am righ now.
I think you are misunderstanding. It supports using 2 sticks yes to increase total storage size, but dual channel is different. The mobo has only one channel that access both slots, one slot at a time. There are boards with 3 and 4 slots, but there is no such thing as triple or quad channel memory controllers //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

I wasn't saying that you couldn't buy 2 sticks of 512 and use them. I said it wouldn't make a difference performance-wise by enabling dual channel capabilities. 1GB or 2x 512mb will work exactly the same on your motherboard.

 
Explanation:

Dual channel Technology

Lets say you have a car that can hold 4 people but you've got 8 people to transport across town. What do you do? Well you could take one load of people across town, and then go back and get another load of people (a standard memory system) or if money was no object you could simply buy another car and have the other half of the people follow you across town in the other car (a Dual channel memory bus). With dual channel technology you use two memory modules at once to further enhance performance. This essentially doubles the number of signals a second you can handle and doubles your bandwidth (volume of information that can be transferred at once). Point Blank: Dual channel technology increases memory performance but it costs more money because you have to buy memory modules in pairs. Dual channel technology also costs more because the motherboard has to support it in the chipset and a chipset that supports dual channel technology costs more due to the higher complexity of the memory bus. Higher motherboard cost + higher memory cost = higher overall system cost.

 
I think you are misunderstanding. It supports using 2 sticks yes to increase total storage size, but dual channel is different. The mobo has only one channel that access both slots, one slot at a time. There are boards with 3 and 4 slots, but there is no such thing as triple or quad channel memory controllers //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif
I wasn't saying that you couldn't buy 2 sticks of 512 and use them. I said it wouldn't make a difference performance-wise by enabling dual channel capabilities. 1GB or 2x 512mb will work exactly the same on your motherboard.
Ohhh. I get it now, I am a lil slow lol. So it would be the exact same speed if I buy two 512's as if I bought one 1024MB? No slower, no faster.

Any advantages over each other?

 
Ohhh. I get it now, I am a lil slow lol. So it would be the exact same speed if I buy two 512's as if I bought one 1024MB? No slower, no faster. Any advantages over each other?
Yes. If you plan on upgrading the entire platform piece by piece then you will want to get 2 sticks of 512(or even 2 sticks of 1GB), so that in your next mobo you can enable dual channel operation //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Proveded of course that your next mobo is a DDR platform instead of a DDRII in which case you will need new RAM anyway. If this is a route you think you will go then get RAM faster than PC3200 too like 4400 so that you will be able to get the most you can out of your next mobo. If you plan on using this existing platform for more than another year then there is no advantage IMO to one or the other.
 
Yes. If you plan on upgrading the entire platform piece by piece then you will want to get 2 sticks of 512(or even 2 sticks of 1GB), so that in your next mobo you can enable dual channel operation //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif Proveded of course that your next mobo is a DDR platform instead of a DDRII in which case you will need new RAM anyway. If this is a route you think you will go then get RAM faster than PC3200 too like 4400 so that you will be able to get the most you can out of your next mobo. If you plan on using this existing platform for more than another year then there is no advantage IMO to one or the other.
Iam not really planning on rebulding it. I will be happy as long as I will be able to play San Andreas with no lag. I can play it now with no lag, but it has to be on low quality, therfore as soon as I walk about 20 feet from my car it disappears. I want to be able to play it on high quality with extra ram to run programs like fraps to capture video and stiff like that.

PS: can I put anything higher than PC2700 on my mobo? I thought you could only use 2700

 
Iam not really planning on rebulding it. I will be happy as long as I will be able to play San Andreas with no lag. I can play it now with no lag, but it has to be on low quality, therfore as soon as I walk about 20 feet from my car it disappears. I want to be able to play it on high quality with extra ram to run programs like fraps to capture video and stiff like that.
PS: can I put anything higher than PC2700 on my mobo? I thought you could only use 2700
No you can out higher in. the number just represents what it's max speed is rated for. Much like how a speaker can be rated for 500WRMS, but you can still run it with 300WRMS just fine. PC3200 and PC2700 are identical in price anyway and is more abundant. If you don't plan on updating the mobo and cpu platform then just throw the cheapest 1GB of PC3200 you can find from one of the reputable brands I listed earlier and you will be goo. I am not 100% convinced that this will give you the level of play in your games you want though. Yes you do need more than 256MB of RAM, but your video card is seriously lacking in it's ability to display full high quality visuals at high resolution without putting a hit on frame rates. Which GF4 do you have BTW? If it is an MX than that is nothing more than a GF2 with higher clocks. if it's Ti4200 or better than at least it has the extra instruction sets and functions, but is still getting long in the tooth.

 
Iam not really planning on rebulding it. I will be happy as long as I will be able to play San Andreas with no lag. I can play it now with no lag, but it has to be on low quality, therfore as soon as I walk about 20 feet from my car it disappears. I want to be able to play it on high quality with extra ram to run programs like fraps to capture video and stiff like that.
PS: can I put anything higher than PC2700 on my mobo? I thought you could only use 2700
*most* all of your performance in a game like GTA is going to come from your video card and its onboard memory. Going higher than 512 wont make a difference, it wil help with running programs like photshop/video editing and stuff like that.

 
Activity
No one is currently typing a reply...

About this thread

DubbDesigns

10+ year member
CarAudio.com Veteran
Thread starter
DubbDesigns
Joined
Location
KY
Start date
Participants
Who Replied
Replies
28
Views
531
Last reply date
Last reply from
DubbDesigns
IMG_20260516_193114554_HDR.jpg

sherbanater

    May 16, 2026
  • 0
  • 0
IMG_20260516_192955471_HDR.jpg

sherbanater

    May 16, 2026
  • 0
  • 0

New threads

Top