Question on RAM (Upgrading)

[Mr. Whitlow]

OK peeps, my birthday is coming up on the 10th of October and I've been looking to get some RAM.

I looked around on ebuyer and found a 2x1gb PC3200 deal for £127, which I thought (And still do) was a bargain. The CAS timings are quite low (3-4-4-8)

I spoke to my mate about this - he is quite a geek, but sometimes he exaggerates and lies towards his bias - and he said that if you don't have the same type of RAM then it's more likely to short circuit.

I currently have 512MB of PC2700 RAM, obviously I'm looking to get 2.5GB - so I'm asking you, will doing this give me short circuits? If it does then I will remove the 512 because 2gb is enough really.
And what does CL mean?


N.B. I have 3 RAM slots, and my motherboard is not dual channel compatible so that's why I'm still going to use the 512MB. (If it's OK)

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=80145 for those who are interested or need more info.

[EvilDisc]

No, the only thing that will happen is that if you have pc2700, and insert a pc3200. The pc3200 chip will lower it self to pc2700.

And, it would not short-circuit.

[Rookie]

Yep, nothing wrong with RAM sticks of different frequencies - the higher frequency one will just lower its frequency, as EvilDisc said.

Short circuiting? It's rare, if it does happen it's more than likely to be a defect in either the RAM itself or the motherboard.

[Mr. Whitlow]

OK thanks chaps, I will go ahead and buy the sticks - I will use the 2.5 and see how it goes, should be fine. Having 2.5GB PC2700 or 2GB PC3200, it won't make a huge difference between the two will it?

[Pethegreat]

2gb of ram is over kill at this time. Just go for 2gb of pc3200. then you can add another 1gb of matching ram later. The speed will help since you can't have dual channel.

[LedZep]

I think Pethegreat meant go for 1gb now and then add later

[Mr. Whitlow]

Originally Posted by Pethegreat™

2gb of ram is over kill at this time. Just go for 2gb of pc3200. then you can add another 1gb of matching ram later. The speed will help since you can't have dual channel.

Yeah I might do that, get another 1 gig at christmas. 3 gig of RAM will have me fine for quite some time I hope.

[Agentlaidlaw]

I have 2GB of ram and I did see a big performance boost from going from 1GB to 2GB of ram. If you have the money then get 2GB of ram, you be happy big time.

[}CL{DaemonC}TG{]

1 gig is sufficient if you're not a power user (ton of heavy memory programs/CAD/mapping, etc.). 2 gigs will keep you well above the minimums for games for prob the next yr to 1 1/2 yrs. If you are a power user, I highly suggest going for 2 gigs if you can, programs run faster on real ram vs virtual memory