Help with RAM

Turbodreams

Am thinking of buying a dell xps 420. have 2 questions if anybody can help.
should i get 3gig(667mhz) or pay an extra €28 and get 3gig(800mhz) or pay an extra €37 and get 4gig(667mhz) even though vista ultimate 32 bit can only use 3.x ram?
or should i just get the 4gig and install the 64bit vista??
thanks in advance

PogMoThoin

Just get the 3Gb in the Dell, Buy a 4Gb kit elsewhere like here & sell the ones in the Dell on adverts.ie. DDR2 is for peanuts at the moment but Dell are still ripping people off with their upgrade prices.

Jackovarian

are the 667mhz and 800mhz limited by the ram or by the motherboard???
probably a silly question, but if they are limited by the mobo, go for the 3gig 800mhz. faster system obviously.


as pog mo thoin says tho, that is a bit of a rip off. sell it on and upgrade yourself.

Turbodreams

cheers for the reply- in that case i wud probably go with 2gig and buy the 4gig myself. the 4gig option on the xps comes via 4*1gig. would it make any difference if i bought 2*2gig and leave 2 slots empty? also how easy wud it be to sell 2nd hand memory, doubt id make that much?
finally, sorry for going on but just want to be sure, the 2gig option comes via 2*1gig so could i just buy myself another 2*1gig or do they have to be the same brand?

Turbodreams

here is the config from dell i am on about .. http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=ieepp1&kc=DRS42001&l=en&oc=D04X414&rbc=D04X414&s=dhs

PogMoThoin

Get the 2x1Gb from Dell, then add another 2x1Gb kit you buy from memoryc, as long as they're rated the same speed they'll be fine. No need for same brand.

If you sell the original sticks, Pc parts are for sale on Adverts.ie all the time, you'd get what they're worth if you sell them. 2x1Gb of generic ram should be worth 25-30e.

Jackovarian

id say its dual channel, so if your going to strip it down to just two sticks of 2 gig id be against it...

somebody correct me if i'm wrong, but if you had 4 sticks of 1 gig you have far more bandwidth to use up between each channel. whereas the 2 sticks would bottleneck your system.

Turbodreams

grand! thanks for the advice- another few euro saved!

PogMoThoin

Jackovarian wrote: »

id say its dual channel, so if your going to strip it down to just two sticks of 2 gig id be against it...

somebody correct me if i'm wrong, but if you had 4 sticks of 1 gig you have far more bandwidth to use up between each channel. whereas the 2 sticks would bottleneck your system.

Nonsence, no difference between 2X1 or 4X2

Jackovarian

so once it was one 2gig stick per channel lets say he'd get the same performance as putting 4x1 in?
fair enough!