Hi Newbie -
Ignore the last post you got. Totally speculation on the part of the
poster and totally false.
The short answer is that PC2700 and 333 MHz DDR SDRAM memory means
the same thing. They run on a computer that supports a 166 MHz
memory bus.
The long answer, describing the official naming, is a bit confusing.
Originally the naming was PC200 for DDR (double data rate) SDRAM that
operates at 100 MHz memory bus and PC266 for the 133 MHz bus, etc.
After RAMBUS used PC600 and PC700, etc., for their RDRAM modules,
which sounds a lot faster than PC200 and PC266 (although it isn't),
the memory industry came up with PC1600 and PC2100 instead. While
PC200 and PC266 are only using the effective clock of the data
transfer for their numbering, PC1600 and PC2100 use the actual peak
data transfer rate in MB/s (megabytes per second). Thus, PC200 is
the same as PC1600 (64 bit * 100 MHz * 2 is roughly 1600 MB/s) and
PC266 is the same as PC2100 (64 bit * 133 MHz * 2 is roughly 2100
MB/s).
Following the same logic, PC333 is the same as PC2700 (64 bit * 166
MHz * 2 is roughly 2700 MB/s).
You'll also see a lot of other 'flavors' out there. PC3200, PC3500,
etc. These are modules which run on a 200 and 233 MHz bus, etc.
The best advice you can follow is to look at the physical PC2700
module currently in your system. Make sure that you have completely
removed the power from your system and have grounded yourself by
touching something metal or wear a grounding strap before you remove
the existing module (static electricity is the worst enemy of
memory!). For the most reliable system you'll want to match it
exactly with another module from the same manufacturer, utilizing the
same manufacturer's memory chips (note that not all SDRAM
manufacturers actually make the chips they use on their modules).
Also, unless you're running applications that are very memory
intensive, such as video or graphic editing, computer aided design,
etc., 512 megabytes is actually an excellent amount of memory for
most systems running Windows XP. I have a gigabyte of memory in my
desktop system because I routinely edit large graphic images using
PhotoShop (I'm talking poster size here).
Good luck if you decide to go ahead and upgrade your memory.
Jef
