Ram speed

[Krynn72]

Im about to purchase some more/new ram and dont know whether I should buy more of the speed I have, or upgrade to a new speed, but not have as many mb of it. I have pc2100 ram (512 of it) and I wanted to get another 512 of pc3200, but after a bit of searching, i found out it wasnt a good idea to mix speeds.

So im wondering if I buy another 512 of pc2100 (making 1gb) would it still be better than say 768 of pc3200? And also, is crucial a good brand? Thats the brand I have now, but I think that its slowing my comp down since I have a radeon 9600pro 256, yet the performance is definately not what it should be. (I forgot the benchmark scores, but the fps are quite low, as in around 20, in games like morrowind)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that my mobo is the a7n8x-x (i think thats the correct name). So now that I think about it, I belive I can only have one stick of pc3100, so more than 512 wont be possible. So how about other speeds?

 

[Asus]

Morrowind is just like that. Ignore it.

More memory is better and buying PC3200 will not make it run faster. It will run at PC2100 speed if that is what your board's controller runs at.

Now buying PC3200 to have in the future for a different machine is different matter. Depends on the price difference and it is up to you.
Crucial is an excelent brand.

 

[[Matt]]

I have an a7n8x-e motherboard which is the deluxe version of yours and mine supports up to 3Gb of PC3200 ram (I believe yours does too but only in single channel). I currently have a barton 2600+ overclocked to around 3500+ estimated and i can only overclock that far because i have PC3200 ram. If i had PC2700 ram i doubt i would be able to clock past 2800+ speeds so a ram upgrade to PC3200 might be worthwhile if your planning to overclock.

 

[scribblehead]

If you can, get Dual ram.
I've personally got 512 Dual DDR3200 ram - works as if i had 1024 ram....

They tend to be bit pricy tho.

 

[[Matt]]

If you can, get Dual ram.
I've personally got 512 Dual DDR3200 ram - works as if i had 1024 ram....

They tend to be bit pricy tho.

thats not quite how dual channel ram works... Its the same amount of memory it just runs faster in dual channel mode.

 

[Fletch]

Dual channel only provides better performance in some applications though.