I'm thinking of upgrading my memory to 4GB, currently using 2GB DDR2-533MHz RAM. What would you recommend?

These are my current computer specs...

2 NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB PCI-Express video cards
2 74GB WD Raptor SATA 10,000RPM 8MB hard drives
Creative Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro 7.1 THX sound card
Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI 2 PCI-E16X motherboard
NetGear WG311NA 54Mbps 802.11g Wireless LAN PCI A
[660] 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 LGA775 2MB Cache
2GB DDR2-533MHz RAM

... I'm also looking at replacing one of my hard drives (more for storage, but also running a RAID connection so I want to stay with 10,000RPM); probably going with the 150GB WD Raptor SATA 10,000RPM 16MB Buffer

Thanks

If you want a 4GB ddr2 with no problems and not worry about cooling problems then i would suggest corsair but they only come in 1gb and 2gb sets you have to buy 2 2gb sets and I would recommend Corsair XMS 2 TWIN2X2048-8500C5 if you are heavy end user if you want something a little cheaper go with Kingmax

Thanks for the tip, I always liked Corsair memory.

... with the 150GB WD Raptor SATA 10,000RPM 16MB Buffer

Thanks


wow, thats allot of pr0n.

wow, thats allot of pr0n.

Helllls yeah

This is the site I normally get parts from... this is gonna cost me about $700!
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=85026-3

Same price on NewEgg...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145033

I built my pc in 05 to compete with my buddys pc that he bought from alienware. All he did was brag about how much power he has and the amazing framerate he is getting from half life2, so My machine is a AMD64 1.5ghz, 1GB of ram (corsair), 1800MHZ FSB, motherboard Abit Fata1lty with OTES cooling, Graphics card is ASUS extreme ATI 800XLT 256DDR, I ran my machine with half life2 framerate was a little better than my buddys but he paid about 2000 dollars more for his sys

Next question: pertaining to hard drives; what is the difference between AHFD and ADFD?

ADFD: Enterprise drive

Designed and manufactured to enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.2 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity drive.

AHFD: Desktop drive :

WD dpsent give it a MTBF time. Just a 5 year warranty.

In short. The Enterprise drive's (ADFD) would be used in a mission critical data storage environment. Say a NetAPP filer appliance. Web hosting data centers. ect.

that's one hell of a rig you got there! why the big increase in Ram?
Did someone upgrade to the memory guzzling OS they call Vista??

Thanks for the info.

that's one hell of a rig you got there! why the big increase in Ram?
Did someone upgrade to the memory guzzling OS they call Vista??

Not yet, but yes, that is playing a part in me upgrading.

Very nice set up, Pretty close to what I am looking at building.

Do you really need the pc2 8500? I would save the $260 and just go with pc2 6400 (DRR2 800)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145590

You are still going to have a significant upgrade in speed and save some money for at least 1 raptor 150. ;)

Also, I am farely certain you can't just upgrade 1 hd in raid 0. both drives need to be the same capacity.
If you just need extra capacity for storing things and not running programs then I would just throw in a 400-500 GB 7200rpm drive on top of the raid set up you currently have.

geeks!

hyuk hyuk hyuk *while adjusting glasses with tape in the middle*

lol

i need to go find my inhaler now.

Remember when you install 4 gigs of ram Windows XP will only show 3.0 to 3.5gigs. Thats normal. Your bios will show 4 gigs. if you right click on your "My Computer" and then click properties it will show your processor and between 3.0 to 3.5 gigs of ram. XP uses some of your virtual memory and lables it ram. Even though your system shows your using 3.0 to 3.5 depending on your virtual memory size it is still using all 4 gigs. Windows sets aside 1gig of ram just for windows applications again depending on your virtual memory or pagefile. In order for windows to show all 4 gigs you will have to upgrade to Vista or the 64bit XP.

Can I ask why you are upgrading to 4 gigs, personally I think that is obscenely too much RAM

Corsair, Kingston are very good RAM makers, Mushkin makes good cheap ram as well.

Remember when you install 4 gigs of ram Windows XP will only show 3.0 to 3.5gigs. Thats normal. Your bios will show 4 gigs. if you right click on your "My Computer" and then click properties it will show your processor and between 3.0 to 3.5 gigs of ram. XP uses some of your virtual memory and lables it ram. Even though your system shows your using 3.0 to 3.5 depending on your virtual memory size it is still using all 4 gigs. Windows sets aside 1gig of ram just for windows applications again depending on your virtual memory or pagefile. In order for windows to show all 4 gigs you will have to upgrade to Vista or the 64bit XP.Uhm, this is totally incorrect.

The 3.2 gig limit is a limitation of particular memory controllers and or processors in the case of AMD (since the athlon has the memory controller on die). It was actually resolved with the Pentium PRO's PAE mode, which allowed for 36 bit addressing, and thus you can address more than 4 gig of ram.
It works like this.
Address space:
0-3gig =======> RAM
3gig to 4gig ===> System Addressable Devices
4gig to 32gig ==> RAM

This is address space so it's not actually allocating anything there, it's just mapping the access to the memory to those locations. The problem still existed until recently even though PAE mode existed as memory controllers still did not allow anything to be addressed beyond 32 bits.

So, that space is not being allocated to the bios, video buffers or pci configuration, it's being ADDRESSED there.

Pagefile is physical space on the hard disk and windows does reserve some ram for itself, but it's a registry customizable amount and the default is something close to 80 meg.

ajax

If you are going to overclock 4x1GB will give you tighter timings and higher speed.

If not then just about all the 2GB sticks will work. They are all about the same at this time.

It all depends on if you are going to attempt to upgrade to 8GB at a future date.

In windows XP it will only show 3.7GB of memory.

If you can wait I would suggest you wait a little bit because memory prices are about to plummet.

By the way the only thing to really consider when buying memory is the chip, PCB, warranty, and PRICE.

Also do you have the plus version of that motherboard?
The only way to find out is to run CPU-Z and on the mainboard tab it will say "Asus P5N32-SLI PLUS"
If so a few people have been getting over 500MHz FSB pretty easily with it.

Here are some GSKILL sticks that are using Micron D9 chips on a 6 layer pcb.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231065
There is cheaper out there but GSKILL has really good tech support are warranty

This is only if you are going to overclock, if not I suggest buying cheap memory.

If going the non overclocking route then another 2x1GB memory and having 4GB of memory.

If so a few people have been getting over 500MHz FSB pretty easily with it.



Maybe I'm just not understanding you, but I hope they would get 500MHz FSB pretty easily, since it is built to support a 1066 MHz FSB

1066 is quad pumped.

So that means its running 266 memory clock. Both are correct depending on how you look at it, they are interchangable.

Kind of like DDR 2 800 can also be DDR 2 400.

Confused yet? Marketing terms conflict with reality way too often.