How do I check RAM and Video Cards?

[Joe88]

Are you sure I won't have any problems with the cheap one? This guy from Circuit city said it would need to be Dell RAM for it to work on my computer.

those guys are circuit city and best buy have no idea what their talking about

I have a dell that I found in the trash and fixed (my comp now)
dimension 4550
I bought ram from newegg, its used DDR1-PC2700, worked fine
you do not need to special ram, any ram will work just make sure its in those ranges (DDR2-PC4300[533]) , and you can pick up any brand

I love to go to best buy and pwn them as far as comp info goes
I overhear them giving customers wrong info and I go in there and own them at their own job

[Nets_VC_15]

in those ranges? So I can buy the 19.95$ ram for my Dell XPS 400, right?

[KyoMatsu]

pre-built and public computers would typically probably range from 256MB to 1GB
typical users probably won't use more than 1GB
higher-end pre-built systems could get up to 2GB, I don't think I've seen any with 4GB

for editing, that absolute minimum I'd try editing with is 512MB
2GB is probably the sugar spot between price and added performance
I'm sure there's more than enough people maxing out with 4GB

I personally use 3GB (only 2.75GB is usable for some reason)

you can always find a way to use all of your memory, but I don't think I've used more than 2.5GB (multiple files open in AvsP, premiere pro, AIM 6, vdubmod)

You using an intigrated video card? or dont have it deactivated in your bios if your not? that might be sucking up some of that ram