RAM type and amount

[Navid]

I have ordered a Pentium 4 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB and an ASUS P4P800
deluxe motherboard.
I plan to get a Radeon 9800 pro or 9600 pro graphics card by the time
half-life
2 comes out. I am thinking of getting a card made by Sapphire, which has no
fan
for low noise.

I now need to get RAM.
How is Kingston 2x256M DDR400 PC3200, model KVR400X64C3AK2/512?
I understand it is a pair of 256M strips for $101.00 (for both) from newegg.
I play first-person shooter games. Is 512M enough ram? Would there be a
noticeable benefit if I have 1G of ram? Any problem with this particular
brand and
model that I have chosen?

Any suggestion would be great.

Thanks,

Navid

 

[MrToad]

I have ordered a Pentium 4 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB and an ASUS P4P800
deluxe motherboard.
I plan to get a Radeon 9800 pro or 9600 pro graphics card by the time
half-life
2 comes out. I am thinking of getting a card made by Sapphire, which
has no fan
for low noise.

I now need to get RAM.
How is Kingston 2x256M DDR400 PC3200, model KVR400X64C3AK2/512?
I understand it is a pair of 256M strips for $101.00 (for both) from
newegg. I play first-person shooter games. Is 512M enough ram? Would
there be a noticeable benefit if I have 1G of ram? Any problem with
this particular brand and
model that I have chosen?

Any suggestion would be great.

Thanks,

Navid

You should be fine with your choice, and as far as the amount of ram; you
didn't state which OS you'd be running, so I'll assume it's at least
Win2k or WinXP. 512 should be plenty, 768 will only help in caching large
textures into memeory when the vid card runs out of room and 1Gig would
be overkill IMO, [unless you plan to do some video editing too].
BTW, be sure to enable the dual channel capabilities of the ASUS P4P800
to get the most performance out of your ram!

If you're running Win9x, you'll have a 768MB cap unless you do some
system.ini editing, see this article for more info:
http://tinyurl.com/6gd9

HTH

 

[Navid]

I have ordered a Pentium 4 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB and an ASUS P4P800
deluxe motherboard.
I plan to get a Radeon 9800 pro or 9600 pro graphics card by the time
half-life
2 comes out. I am thinking of getting a card made by Sapphire, which
has no fan
for low noise.

I now need to get RAM.
How is Kingston 2x256M DDR400 PC3200, model KVR400X64C3AK2/512?
I understand it is a pair of 256M strips for $101.00 (for both) from
newegg. I play first-person shooter games. Is 512M enough ram? Would
there be a noticeable benefit if I have 1G of ram? Any problem with
this particular brand and
model that I have chosen?

Any suggestion would be great.

Thanks,

Navid

You should be fine with your choice, and as far as the amount of ram; you
didn't state which OS you'd be running, so I'll assume it's at least
Win2k or WinXP. 512 should be plenty, 768 will only help in caching large
textures into memeory when the vid card runs out of room and 1Gig would
be overkill IMO, [unless you plan to do some video editing too].
BTW, be sure to enable the dual channel capabilities of the ASUS P4P800
to get the most performance out of your ram!

If you're running Win9x, you'll have a 768MB cap unless you do some
system.ini editing, see this article for more info:
http://tinyurl.com/6gd9

HTH

Yes, I will use XP pro.
No, I don't do video editing.
Thanks for your response.

 

[@drian]

I have ordered a Pentium 4 2.6GHz, 800MHz FSB and an ASUS P4P800
deluxe motherboard.
I plan to get a Radeon 9800 pro or 9600 pro graphics card by the time
half-life
2 comes out.

So you'll be ordering next year then?

I now need to get RAM.
How is Kingston 2x256M DDR400 PC3200, model KVR400X64C3AK2/512?
I understand it is a pair of 256M strips for $101.00 (for both) from newegg.
I play first-person shooter games. Is 512M enough ram?

Yes, I'd say so. For games, Internet browsing, e-mail, word processing,
etc., it is fine. I assume Windows XP? If you are going to dual-boot Win98
with Linux, 512MB is definitely enough.

Would there be a
noticeable benefit if I have 1G of ram?

I don't think so. The largest difference is between 256 and 512MBs of RAM.

Any problem with this particular
brand and
model that I have chosen?

Did you go through Kingston's Make/Model configurator?

@drian.

 

[Navid]

So you'll be ordering next year then?

I plan to put it together with my current PCI MX440 and hope that
it would not be worse than what I have now (P3 933MHz, 512M ram).
Then, I will decide about which (AGP) graphics card to get.
I am hoping that the prices would go down a little bit in the meantime.

Yes, I'd say so. For games, Internet browsing, e-mail, word processing,
etc., it is fine. I assume Windows XP? If you are going to dual-boot Win98
with Linux, 512MB is definitely enough.

I have Win XP pro and I play games, and email and surf the net.
But, the main reason for this is to improve my gameplay. Everything
else is fine already with my current system.

I don't think so. The largest difference is between 256 and 512MBs of RAM.

Did you go through Kingston's Make/Model configurator?

I did not know about it. I assume you are talking about this:
http://www.kingston.com/products/default.asp
Thanks.

@drian.

Thanks a lot @drian

 

[@drian]

I plan to put it together with my current PCI MX440 and hope that
it would not be worse than what I have now (P3 933MHz, 512M ram).
Then, I will decide about which (AGP) graphics card to get.
I am hoping that the prices would go down a little bit in the meantime.

I would probably get a slightly more powerful graphics card. I'm not sure
in the case of HL2 it will be powerful enough.

I have Win XP pro and I play games, and email and surf the net.
But, the main reason for this is to improve my gameplay. Everything
else is fine already with my current system.

Yes, for gameplay I would get a better video card, if it were me. Probably
the GeForce 5600 line or an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro.

I did not know about it. I assume you are talking about this:
http://www.kingston.com/products/default.asp

Yes, or you can go here:

http://www.kingston.com

Look on the main page, under "MEMORY SEARCH >>". You start by picking a
manufacturer, so in my case, I'd pick Intel because I have an Intel board.
Then click "Find". Then you'll be brought to a page to pick a motherboard
model.

I believe Crucial has something similar, except with them, you can pick a
model of PC in the case of an OEM.

@drian.