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If your computer was a kitchen, the memory might be the amount of work-surface you have to prepare food on - say the kitchen table. Your cupboards (HDD) could be full of the finest ingredients and you could have shelves full of cookbooks containing brilliant recipes (applications), but if you only have a work area the size of a coffee table don't expect to be able to prepare a dinner for 10 people. A nice big work area that allows you to get out as many things as possible will significantly increase your chances of success.
But buying RAM isn't just aboout size...getting a cheap 512Mb stick of unbranded rubbish would be a little like trying to use one of those cheapo fold-up wallpapering tables to prepare your feast on...that big surface area is only supported by fragile legs, so you might get lots of things out to work on, but the table will be very unstable and may well split in the middle under all that weight.
If you want a good solid work area that will last you forever and give you maximum stability, then your the kind of person who would use a good branded RAM like Crucial or Samsung in their machine. If you buy Corsair or one of the similar 'performance' brands of RAM, then you have one of those tables that extends when you need it to...it costs significantly more, but it you should be able to invite a couple more people to dinner.
RAM prices have been shooting up in recent weeks, with a single DIMM of top end PC3200 hitting £80 or £90. Corsair is subject to many arguments...many say it's definitely the best overclocking memory available, but even if it isn't, it is still definitely very stable at its rated speeds. I shopped around and managed to find XMS3200 CAS2 at just over £70 per 512Mb stick. Crucial was perhaps £10-20 cheaper. Samsung has been enjoying a good reputation for surprisingly stable and cheap memory in the last couple of years, mainly based on its PC2700 Original brand. This is stil a good buy, though I'd go for the PC3200.
As for things like Low Latency...well that's Corsairs way of pre-setting the timings on sticks that should cope with them. Problem is, you pay significantly more for it and there's no guarantee that the rest of your system will allow it to work effectively at those timings. The A7N8X mobo doesn't seem to like Corsair's LL ram, for one. You are probably better off paying a lot less for the standard XMS3200 and tweaking the timings in bios...you probably won't be able to achieve LL settings, as Corsair seem to know exactly where the market should force you to spend more.
'TwinX' is another little gimmick...supposedly 'matched' pairs of ram that are guaranteed to work efficiently in dual channel mode on mobos that support it. Problem here, though, is that if only one stick fails, Corsair don't ask you to return both...they just send you another one out. Now how can they do that? Do they sneak into your house while you sleep, nick your working ram and find another matching one? I don't think so. Do yourself a big favour...if you can afford it, then get good branded ram, including Corsair, but don't fall for the gimmicks.
Oh, and 512MB is more than enough for most applications but 1Gb is becoming increasingly common. As the A7N8X Deluxe mobo supports dual channel, I'm sticking two 512Mb dimms in it for now.
But buying RAM isn't just aboout size...getting a cheap 512Mb stick of unbranded rubbish would be a little like trying to use one of those cheapo fold-up wallpapering tables to prepare your feast on...that big surface area is only supported by fragile legs, so you might get lots of things out to work on, but the table will be very unstable and may well split in the middle under all that weight.
If you want a good solid work area that will last you forever and give you maximum stability, then your the kind of person who would use a good branded RAM like Crucial or Samsung in their machine. If you buy Corsair or one of the similar 'performance' brands of RAM, then you have one of those tables that extends when you need it to...it costs significantly more, but it you should be able to invite a couple more people to dinner.
RAM prices have been shooting up in recent weeks, with a single DIMM of top end PC3200 hitting £80 or £90. Corsair is subject to many arguments...many say it's definitely the best overclocking memory available, but even if it isn't, it is still definitely very stable at its rated speeds. I shopped around and managed to find XMS3200 CAS2 at just over £70 per 512Mb stick. Crucial was perhaps £10-20 cheaper. Samsung has been enjoying a good reputation for surprisingly stable and cheap memory in the last couple of years, mainly based on its PC2700 Original brand. This is stil a good buy, though I'd go for the PC3200.
As for things like Low Latency...well that's Corsairs way of pre-setting the timings on sticks that should cope with them. Problem is, you pay significantly more for it and there's no guarantee that the rest of your system will allow it to work effectively at those timings. The A7N8X mobo doesn't seem to like Corsair's LL ram, for one. You are probably better off paying a lot less for the standard XMS3200 and tweaking the timings in bios...you probably won't be able to achieve LL settings, as Corsair seem to know exactly where the market should force you to spend more.
'TwinX' is another little gimmick...supposedly 'matched' pairs of ram that are guaranteed to work efficiently in dual channel mode on mobos that support it. Problem here, though, is that if only one stick fails, Corsair don't ask you to return both...they just send you another one out. Now how can they do that? Do they sneak into your house while you sleep, nick your working ram and find another matching one? I don't think so. Do yourself a big favour...if you can afford it, then get good branded ram, including Corsair, but don't fall for the gimmicks.
Oh, and 512MB is more than enough for most applications but 1Gb is becoming increasingly common. As the A7N8X Deluxe mobo supports dual channel, I'm sticking two 512Mb dimms in it for now.
