1G PC2100 or 512M PC3200

[cell]

My mobo is MSI intel 484p, it says it Support Single channel DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC memory up to 2GB. There are only two slot. So, which one is better, 1G PC2100 or 512M PC3200, since they are pretty much the same price. I favor stablity than speed. Thanks for you advice. If I am asking stupid question, please teach me.

[nizzy1115]

My mobo is MSI intel 484p, it says it Support Single channel DDR 400/333/266 non-ECC memory up to 2GB. There are only two slot. So, which one is better, 1G PC2100 or 512M PC3200, since they are pretty much the same price. I favor stablity than speed. Thanks for you advice. If I am asking stupid question, please teach me.

Well stability vs speed. Since your board supports both speeds, both will be stable, but you will see a pretty decent if not great performance difference between the two. The pc2100 runs at 266 mhz while the pc 3200 runs at 400 mhz. The real question here is do you have any ram already installed into your board allready. If your answer is yes you do have ram in your board, then what speed is it. If it is pc 2100 ram, then buy the 1 gb, but if you dont have any in it right now, id suggest the 512 pc3200. You can even buy a pc3200 ram "kit of 2" for dual channel computers but your board will just run it in single channel mode which is fine too.

[cell]

Thank you very much, it is very informative. I will take your advice, buy 512 pc3200 since my mobo is still empty.

Well stability vs speed. Since your board supports both speeds, both will be stable, but you will see a pretty decent if not great performance difference between the two. The pc2100 runs at 266 mhz while the pc 3200 runs at 400 mhz. The real question here is do you have any ram already installed into your board allready. If your answer is yes you do have ram in your board, then what speed is it. If it is pc 2100 ram, then buy the 1 gb, but if you dont have any in it right now, id suggest the 512 pc3200. You can even buy a pc3200 ram "kit of 2" for dual channel computers but your board will just run it in single channel mode which is fine too.

[cell]

Hi, Nizzy. In term to the performance, is there any big difference among CL2, 2.5, 3 ram of the same type. It looks there are about $10~$20 difference. Thanks

Well stability vs speed. Since your board supports both speeds, both will be stable, but you will see a pretty decent if not great performance difference between the two. The pc2100 runs at 266 mhz while the pc 3200 runs at 400 mhz. The real question here is do you have any ram already installed into your board allready. If your answer is yes you do have ram in your board, then what speed is it. If it is pc 2100 ram, then buy the 1 gb, but if you dont have any in it right now, id suggest the 512 pc3200. You can even buy a pc3200 ram "kit of 2" for dual channel computers but your board will just run it in single channel mode which is fine too.

[cell]

I did a little search. It seems clock latency (CL) of RAM is more related to overclock ability, the actual speed and performance are more or less same for the same kind. Am I right?

[vitamindew]

I think my old computer had pc2100 and I was told thats no good at all.

So id go with pc3200, which seems to have a wider availbility.

[suRoot]

512 ram is fine for most things, so unless you're intending to use the computer as a database server or support loads of network connections stick to the faster ram

[nizzy1115]

you will see a slight gain in performance (1-3% at most) from 2.5 vs 3 cl. Yes it helps with overclocking because in overclocking you can raise your speed higher and higher by just raising the latency to 3. For your purposes you will be perfectly fine with 3.0 latency as your motherboard probably wont even support lower latencys and will make it 3 no mater what the stick really is. So just go with the cheap stuff in my opinion ;)