I'm looking to upgrade the ram in my computer in the next couple of months and because I haven't really been paying attention to all of the new latest and greatest products in the computer market I was curious if you guys could help me out. I want to up grade my ram to 2GB of DDR400 pc3200. I don't need anything fancy, I'm not looking to over clock or anything I just need a couple of reliable sticks of ram at a reasonable price. Any help you could give would be great and any links to the products would be better Thanks Edit: I changed the title because the thread changed. I'm trying to get a good Nforce2 MoBo that will allow 2G (512x512x1G) of DDR400 and not cost an arm and a leg
Just grab some Kingston if you want the non-fancy somewhat-reliable brand. You could use generic if you knew what to look for that would work with your comp.
Nobody needs 2 gigs of ram... unless you do some heavy duty Maya/CAD stuff... Eitherway, I'd go with crucial if your looking for a reliable company!
I have the opportunity to get a new GFX card and something else since its not enough money to get a A64 system I just figured I would up my ram. I'm a graphics designer, I work with 3d studio max at work and photoshop CS at work and home so actually 2Gigs of ram at home would be heaven. My current rig AMD XP3200+ MB: Asus A7V600 1GB 2x512 DDR400 generic 120GB seagate HD 250GB Maxtor HD GF FX 5200 128 Mb WinXP Pro SB audigy2 zs not a bad system for the money I paid and its relatively new the onlything I'm not happy with is the GFX card I'm looking into replacing it with a x800 xt pe or x850 xt pe. I havent made up my mind entirely, but I think the 2Gig's of ram would really help out my Photoshop at home. If I open a fairly large image at 300ppi/dpi it laggs badly.
Well that kills the dual channel idea. Since you have two 512MB sticks already, I'd find out what timings your existing ram has and just get a generic 1GB stick with timings atleast as good and call it a day. There is no real advantage to buying two generic 1GB sticks and to buy a pair of low latency 1GB stick so you can use faster timings isn't going to be cost effective for the gains you'll get. Never mind, I just looked at the manual for your mobo. VIA strikes again... you can only use two memory slots at 200MHz so the 512MB+512MB+1GB isnt going to work. So I didn't resolve angthing and we're back to you getting two 1GB sticks. Both kingston and corsair have value lines which should work just fine. In the past I've used generic ram from Apacer which is some of the cheapest stuff around and has always worked with no problems.
Sorry I forgot to mention the reason I was hunting for 2 sticks was because it wont take 2x512gb and and additional 1x1gb If you know of a better Mobo with the same features I have that would let me have 3 sticks of DDR400 up to 2GB I would be more than willing to Perhaps get a new Mobo. Thanks for the advice.
Good Idea!! A mobo is certainly going to be cheaper than a 1GB stick of ram. If this is the route you want to take then an Abit NF7-S would be the board to get, best socket A board there is IMHO (I have 2 myself). I only see a limitation of 2GB max memory at 200MHz but I see no mention of a limitation of how many slots you can use at that speed in the manual. You can atleast use it in single channel mode with 2x512MB + 1GB. I have heard that if you put the two 512's together on 1 channel and the 1GB on the other channel it will run in dual channel mode. But I've heard its dual channel mode at a reduced speed, but is still faster than single channel mode. You'd have to do some research on this fact though. But if you do go for a new mobo instead of another stick of ram you can just try it when you get it. I think the only thing you'll lose is gigabit LAN - again do some fact checking. Just a thought... The little speed boost you get from dual channel may be enough on its own to do what you like, saving you the cost of 1GB sticks all together.... maybe worth a try.
ok now my question would be can I put 512x512x1G ddr400 in the NF7-S and get my 2G of ram? I understand I dont need it but I would like to know for future refrence.
For Socket A the best motherboard which has been for some time is the Abit NF7-S V2, not the NF7S2, don't be fooled like alot of people did
Don't expect a huge jump going to dual channel. There is a definite speed increase over single channel but some have been disappointed expecting a world of difference. Some say there is no difference, but it did make a noticable difference when I went DC. As for the 512+512+1G... as I said in my previous post, the manual says a limitation of 2GB at 400DDR, but it makes no mention of only being able to use 2 mem slots instead of all 3. You may want to email Abit about it just to make sure... but I'm sure someone here will know for sure too.
I got my brother a new motherboard because he needed 4x184 ddr400 slots. I settled on this it is running 2 gigs of kingston ddr400 ram (4X512 sticks), without any problems, and does provide a certain degree of overclocking. Not to mention its price for an Nforce 2 mobo
