RAM Suggestions

Exfoliate

Hey JP, yeah dual-channel will help you out mate, it may not make a huge impact but it should speed up some more intensive tasks a little. PC 3200 is all you you really need if you're not going to oc it, so I wouldn't worry about that, you'd just be paying extra for a minor performance bump. Both those brands have a very good rep, the prices may look a little too good to be true in some cases but I'd say they're pretty trust worthy form what I hear, also look into G-Skill, great price and quality. Don't worry, Muskin and Corsair still know how it's done, XMS is obviously going to be way pricey but the quality will be phenominal of course, however the price they charge just wont be worth it when you can get compairable ram for far less. And yeah, definately don't get any ram with 3-x-x trimmings, 2.5 is fine and anything that begins with 2 will be great. Hope this helps.

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Addis

Corsair also tends to be overclocking friendly so if thats your intention then it might be a better choice. Geil is also good.
dual channel will give you about a 10% boost in performance.

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Big B

I've picked up some Patriot/PDP stuff, the PC3200+XBL stuff, and it's excellent stuff. For a cheap, but high-quality RAM, it seems to be pretty solid from what I can see.

If your motherboard has dual-channel capabilities, then I would definitely take advantage of it. As far as the amount, you're looking at diminishing returns past 1GB, unless you're running a heavily loaded server or working with tons of video or photo editing stuff.

Corsair is good, but you do need to be aware that they are able to command the prices paritially because of their name. It is deserved, but just keep in mind that you don't have to sell your kidneys for good RAM. On the flip side, don't get the cheapest stuff you can find either. I'd look around at other message boards and see what people are using with what motherboard. Some motherboards may not play well with a certain RAM, like the DFI NF4 motherboards and any Value-labled DDR.

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JP4LSU

So let me get this right.
Using 2 sticks of 512 in Dual mode is better than 1 stick of 1 Gig.?

A 10% increase by using 2 sticks of 512MB over 1 stick of 1gig is substantial. I guess it makes sense since you can take advantage of the extra paths. Well I'll be getting the 2 sticks of 512MB then. Thanks for the inputs, I appreciate it.

Will the board detect the sticks and automatically switch to dual mode or does it have to be set up in the mobo?

Cheers

zRoCkIsAdDiCtInG

yea it is, because each module works as if twice as hard so instead of stressing one module think of four modules working together.

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Exfoliate

Your mobo manual will label the ram slots you have to place the ram duo in for it to function in tandum like you want, once you've layed them in the proper slots (seems to vary from mobo to mobo) I'm pretty sure they should work in dual-channel mode with no extra configuring mate.

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JP4LSU

Thanks guys for your help and inputs/advice.
I'm sticking with the DDR RAM and will decide what brand. I'm thinking Mushkin or Corsair but Patriot and PQI look tempting too with the price and latency numbers.

I will check some forums out along with this one when I decide what mobo and RAM to buy to see if anybody has had experience with the two brands together.