P4P800 - How to dual channel for RAM?

[Elly]

My P4 2.6Ghz has one 256MB 3200 DDR installed right now. When I'm
running 1 Windows Media player playing a MP3 song, 1 MS Excel 2003, 10
IE Windows, 1 Forte Agent, 1 Adobe Photoshop and 1 Adobe Illustrator,
the Page File Usage goes up to 570MB at Windows Task
Manager>Performance. I haven't start the ATI Media Center to watch TV
yet. I often run this many applications at the same time. It gets slow
sometimes so I think 256MB isn't enough for me. The motherboard is
P4P800 Deluxe so I want to try the board's dual mode feature and the
CPU's hyper threading feature too. Should I get a pair of 256MB or a
pair of 512MB?

Should I go with name brands or generic ones for RAM? I want to use
generic ones if it's possible since it costs about 50% less. Two
Kingston 512MB, KVR400X64C3AK2/512, at kingston.com -
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator/modelsinfo.asp?SysID=14687&distributor=0&submit1=Search
, costs $206. A pair of generic ones costs about $100 at
Pricewatch.com.

 

[Roy Coorne]

My P4 2.6Ghz has one 256MB 3200 DDR installed right now. When I'm
running 1 Windows Media player playing a MP3 song, 1 MS Excel 2003, 10
IE Windows, 1 Forte Agent, 1 Adobe Photoshop and 1 Adobe Illustrator,
the Page File Usage goes up to 570MB at Windows Task
Manager>Performance. I haven't start the ATI Media Center to watch TV
yet. I often run this many applications at the same time. It gets slow
sometimes so I think 256MB isn't enough for me. The motherboard is
P4P800 Deluxe so I want to try the board's dual mode feature and the
CPU's hyper threading feature too. Should I get a pair of 256MB or a
pair of 512MB?

512 MB is fine for WinXP, 1024 MB is comfortable (and nearly necessary
for Photoshop).

Should I go with name brands or generic ones for RAM? I want to use
generic ones if it's possible since it costs about 50% less. Two
Kingston 512MB, KVR400X64C3AK2/512, at kingston.com -
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator/modelsinfo.asp?SysID=14687&distributor=0&submit1=Search
, costs $206. A pair of generic ones costs about $100 at
Pricewatch.com.

Name brand is better than generic - there are good low cost brands as
Infineon (original modules, not chips only on 3rd party modules).
You may consult the Asus QVL (on the web site) or www.crucial.com >
Memory Upgrades (they sell 1st quality Micron RAM at reasonable prices).

Roy

 

[end user]

Get quality ram, Corsair, Crucial, Kingston......It does cost more but
consider it a long term investment. Also 1 gig of ram is reasonable
considering the amount of app. you run at the same time.

At work I use a p4 2.4 system with 1 gig of pc 3200 (board does not
support dual channel). While using both Illustrator & photoshop the
system visually slows down.

Locust.