RAM: What does it all mean???

esuhl

I'm going to be upgrading my PC shortly and have been looking at reviews of RAM... and I have almost NO idea what is being compared and what I ought to go for!

I'm going to get the snappily named Winfast/Foxcon NF4UK8AA-8EKRS motherboard with a AMD 64 3700+ San Diego chip (um... assuming they'll work together - I haven't actually checked).

I'm going to get at least 1GB of RAM, but I have no idea which brands are "good", if unbranded RAM is just as good, let alone what DDR, DDR2, PC3200, 200MHz, 184-pins, etc. etc. mean...

Can anyone help it all make sense to my poor brain - the more I read about it, the less I feel I know!!!

:-) Many thanks in advance :-)

£$&*"($£&(

I'd always recommend well priced branded RAM and I'd always recommend Crucial (https://www.crucial.com/uk) for quality and price (and service in my experience).

davegib20

make sure the motherboard you are getting is a 64 bit cpu compatible board as they are simply a different size processor to previous versions (socket A) and they wont phsically fit.

The mentioned MB will work with the above processor as they are both 939 socket and chip.

In terms of RAM, all the spec you see refers to speed of retrieval etc. The only thing you need to worry about are whether your motherboard will take the RAM you get.

DDR-I 266/333/400MHz RAM are the types of RAM you need for the above MB. So thats all you need to ask for. Dont mix and match them as this can cause problems. Any manufacturer will work. Unbranded will do the same thing but cannot be mixed with branded (in my experience anyway)

I would say go for branded because they are more reliable but thats relative, as long as you dont mix branded and unbranded you should be fine.

Good guide to RAM here http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid40_gci523855,00.html

Hope this helps

blinky

That board is Socket 939 so it'll take the San Diego, though it may need a BIOS update. For 1Gb get 2x512Mb so it will run in dual channel mode.

The AMD64 only supports DDR (DDR2 comes next year with socket M2). With the prices today so little to be saved by choosing PC2700 or PC2100 over PC3200. Additionally, there's little to gained by choosing faster speeds than PC3200.

Normally I buy my RAM from Crucial as mentioned above. I'm currently using 2x512Mb Crucial PC3200 with my DFI NF4-Ultra D.

The board has a 24 pin ATX2.0 PSU as it is PCI-Express (PCI-Express requires 2x +12V rails). Although in the manual they say you can use a 20 pin PSU, a 24 pin is recommended. Budget £40-50 for a decent PSU.