RAM or Not RAM That is the Question

[Womble]

Hope someone can enlighten me with my problem. At the moment I have 1 stick of 512 DDR SDRAM, but I have been given 3 sticks of 256m PC100 100mhz. What I would like to know is what is the best set up to have?. System spec is below.
All comments gratefully recieved

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Speed : 2.40GHz
Performance Rating : PR2638 (estimated)
Type : Standard
L2 On-board Cache : 512kB ECC Synchronous ATC (8-way sectored, 64 byte line size)

Mainboard
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI IMB USB FireWire/1394 i2c/SMBus
MP Support : No
MP APIC : Yes
System BIOS : American Megatrends Inc. P1.30
Mainboard : P4VX4
Total Memory : 511MB DDR-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model : ASRock Inc ProSavageDDR P4X333 CPU to PCI Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 133MHz (532MHz data rate)
Total Memory : 512MB DDR-SDRAM
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 166MHz (332MHz data rate)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : Acer LCD Monitor AL1721
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600
Imaging Device : Hewlett-Packard PSC 750 Scanner

[paulyoung666]

what os ???????????

[philip.j.fry]

AFAIK you can't mix DDR and SDR (i.e. pc100), the sticks probably won't even fit in your board.

Originally Posted by philip.j.fry

AFAIK you can't mix DDR and SDR (i.e. pc100), the sticks probably won't even fit in your board.

SDram and DDR ram are not inter compatible, so its one or the other i'm afraid

[paulyoung666]

missed that one , as brain death slowly comes into play

[Womble]

I understand i cant have both, is the existing 512 better than 767 of PC100 RAM?

[paulyoung666]

probably not a lot in it tbh , why dont you try and see what happens if you swap them

[TheBlueRaja]

Agreed

Stick them in the slot - see what happens...

You will soon discover which is better...

:whistle:

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by Womble

I understand i cant have both, is the existing 512 better than 767 of PC100 RAM?

Yes, by a long way.
DDR is much faster.

Originally Posted by philip.j.fry

AFAIK you can't mix DDR and SDR (i.e. pc100), the sticks probably won't even fit in your board.

good call, I just googled the board specs & it's DDR only.

the good news is that if they are good quality strips, the current price from Crucial for new ones is £99, each - so, while I doubt there is a huge demand, the OP may be able to flog them?

[punky]

Sitck with the DDR. DDR actually stands for Double Data rate, so you can either look at it as 1gig RAM, at SDRam speeds, or 512m, running at twice the speed (even if it is only PC2100 speed).

[altis]

Your mobo doesn't even support PC100 memory!

Mobo details here:
http://www.asrock.com/product/product_p4vx4.htm

Chipset details here: (look under P4X400)
http://www.via.com.tw/en/apollo/p4x400.jsp

[Womble]

Originally Posted by altis

Your mobo doesn't even support PC100 memory!

Didn't even check that!!! lol
Thanks for all your replies, much appreciated. I'll stick with what I've got. Anyone wannna couple of sticks of memory?? good prices!!! lol