RAM Recommendation
 

Hey i am currently dragging along with only 256MB of ram. Its a Samsung pc2700 333Mhz "True" or whatever. Is it necessary/better for me to buy another samsung stick to match? What would you guys recommend? I am wicked broke so any amount of savings will be nice, and i just want another 256MB, that will suffice for now. Thanks in advance for any help.

No, it doesnt really matter. As long as it is the same kind of RAM, it will work fine.

You may want to wait a bit though, RAM prices have jumped a lot in the past couple of weeks. They tend to go back down pretty fast though.

Buy something of equal or greater speed and equal or lesser timings. Samsung is cheap so get that.
I would stay away from the no-name brands.

Ram prices will be high for a while yet.

Can someone tell me why RAM prices spiked? What gives? Thanks

Ram prices have spiked because memory manufacturers have shifted over production to flash memory (for everybody with digital camers/mp3 players. Also some manufacturers are startig to produce DDR-II modules so all of this means that they cut back on the production of DDR Ram.

Hope that answered your question.

So the samsung ram would be worth the extra 10-15 bucks? seems plausable enough thanks for the info

I doubt the additional RAM would bring about a noticeable difference in performace of normal tasks (web surfing, word processing, etc.) Maybe you'll need it for Photoshop or something.

Actually the jump from 256 to 512 is rather dramatic if you are running 2K/XP and do any sort of games/multitasking.
If you just check your email once a week don't bother.

yeah i need it as most games (far cry AHHH!) run relativly shitty on my AXP 1800 and Radeon 9800 pro, im assuming the ram is the problem

RAM and proc. Id definitely upgrade the RAM first. Maybe even look at getting a stick of 512. I have 512 in my system right now, and still manage to fill it up quite frequently when gaming.

The good news is that AMD processors are pretty cheap. If your mobo will support the higher FSB speed, you could drop a $70 2500 in there and be good to go.

Damn, I had no idea you were playing games with 256 MB of RAM! wombat is right, the jump from 256 MB to 512 MB with games is huge. I recommend more than 512 MB for today's games...the loading times are insanely faster with even 256 MB extra RAM. Comparing my 512 MB to my brother's 768 MB of RAM is sad...his levels load at least twice as fast as mine with only 256 MB of RAM more.

-Lasereth

:eek:
Forget about 512, time to move to 1024.

Not only load times but game play. With 256 and even 512 MB of ram larger games have to do alot of swapping (BAD).