by Zero1 » Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:08 pm
I second the vote for Kingston, Corsair is usually highly regarded also (may be getting some Corsair soon)
Be sure to check the motherboard manual to see what it supports! And take any limitations literally!!!
I'm speaking from personal experience, I've got a new Athlon64 motherboard that supports up to 3 sticks of RAM. Well I've got 3 sticks of RAM, but it won't boot. Why? Here's why:
RAM comes in Single and Double sided versions (Single side have memory chips on one side, I believe it's 8 chips per side, and Double sided one have chips on both sided (Total of 16))
Although my board supports 3 RAM sticks, (which in theory could be 6 sides in total) It only supports 3 sides at once.
So you can have a Double sided (DS) RAM in any socket.
Or you can have a DS and a Single Sided (SS) in any socket
Or you can have SS in all 3 sockets.
(In order to only have 3 sides)
Unfortunately for me, I bought 3x512MB RAM sticks, which are all DS. This means I can only safely use 1 Stick, because 2 or more would be exceeding the 3 side limit.
This is where me needing to grab some Corsair comes into the equation, I need some single sided 512MB sticks and a double sided 1GB stick.
The moral of this story:
Upgrading should be easy, beneficial and (if you are like me) fun. I've learnt to always read the manuals. Also download an application like Everest (formerly AIDA32) and/or SiSoft Sandra. These should give you information on modules installed so you can match up to them (Make a not of the timings, latencies and what not.)