Eiji

I have a ASUS A7V333 motherboard with 2x256MB KingMax PC2700 DDR333 RAM and have 1 RAM slot free.

I was wondering whether a stick of 512MB Kingmax PC3200 DDR400 RAM would be compatible with my motherboard and existing RAM to bring the total to 1GB or would a 512MB Kingston PC2700 DDR333 RAM be better?

Thanks.

ray_gillespie

It depends. I would think that it will be compatible but the real question is how much benefit you'll get. If your motherboard supports dual-channel access, it would definitely be worth getting the 2 x 256MB sticks as you could run them in dual channel mode.

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American Zombie

The ram will work fine but will drop back to PC2700 333 speeds.

Howling Wolf

Oooops, AZ was faster than me...

I know your Mobo as it was my previous one: no dual channel, it appeared with my present Mobo the A7V880 (oh, I forgot, I had the A7V600 in between).

DDR 400 (PC3200) won't benefit you in terms of memory speed as you have DDR 333 (PC2700) already: the DDR 400 will automatically be down clocked to DDR 333. And I don't remember if the A7V333 supports DDR 400, I think it isn't.
If you can afford it, I'd replace the 2x256 DDR 333 with one single 1Go DDR 333 memory stick (around 75€ in FroggyLand where I live), as mismatched size of memory sticks is sometimes a source of troubles.

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Eiji

Yeah, since my mobo doesn't support dual channel I will just buy a 1GB stick.

Which should I get?

Corsair or Crucial?

These are the two I am eyeing up:

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartsp...0FED06A5CA7304

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=217958

Should I just sell the 2x256 KingMax I already have or install the 1GB alongside them for 1.5GB memory?

Thanks

epk

well... they're similar models, and value ram, so i think it's more of a personal preference... both would be good

since they're not gonna run in dual channel the config is not a problem, so i think leaving the old 2x256 is better, so the system is less likely to page with memory hungry apps
plus i don't think you could make much selling 2 used 256mb sticks of old pc2700 ram

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Eiji

Well, I managed to sell both the old sticks for £22 which I think is good seing as how a 512MB stick costs around £25 new so I'm buying the 1GB Crucial RAM for £50 from Dabs.com soon and hope all is well unless its available somewhere else for cheaper?

Anyway I figured I didn't really need 1.5GB of RAM and don't feel comfortable in mixing different sizes and brands of RAM.

Would there be any performance difference between 1 x 1GB or 2 x 512MB even though my motherboard is not dual-channel?

LordOfLA

no performance difference really unless the memory operates faster by design. Crucial mainstream ram is usually fairly quick. You'd only get faster by moving into the enthusiast ram market.

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Eiji

Received the 1GB of RAM today and installed it. All is working fine. Thanks!

ray_gillespie

Good to hear it, well done.

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