PC 2100 ram question
 

I'm planning a new system using a asus p4b533-e motherboard.

It can hold up to 2gigs of ram. What "brand" works best? I have been looking around and many of the applications people describe is that the faster ones are for gaming needs. Do I need this speed for video? I also don't want crap ram either, there are so many to choose from. Also.... Where is a good place to buy from online?

IMO
 

Corsair RAM

It's worth the extra few bucks.

From any of the big manufacturers, ram is ram. If the vendor doesn't list who makes it, or their techs can't tell you straight off, pass on it. Top of my list would be Samsung, Micron or Infineon.

I put forth that you'll never notice the difference between cheap generic RAM and expensive brand RAM, so you should always go for the best price. Occasionally you may get a bad SIMM, in which case you should send it back for replacement, but this is, in my experience, equally likely whether you're buying name brand or value brand memory.

I've never done a scientific study on this, swapping out SIMMs and benchmarking, so I suppose if you're building a 20-node render farm and eliminating every last speed bottleneck was of the utmost import, you might consider consulting someone with hard data. Even still, it's a wasteful enterprise, because while you're busing spending an extra few hundred dollars per PC buying the brand RAM, by the time you're finished the next processor chip will have come out and prices will have been slashed and your render farm is obsolete anyway.

So buy the cheap stuff.

It's less the brand... and more the speed.

I don't know the speed of your bus, but if it can handle 533MHz, I would put some 600MHz DDR ram in it.

One gig should do it for most applications.

I have to disagree about cheap memory - its best that you invest in better quality. For one, purchasing better memory from a good brand means a lifetime warranty if you go with Corsair, Crucial, or Kingston for example, and just to name a few. Then there are the actual specifications that the better memory sports. CAS setting for example.

With a good motherboard they offer BIOS settings, which allow the informed and experienced user how to tweak a system for best performance (compare this with generic motherboards, server type motherboards, or those from Dell that "protect" users from BIOS settings by disabling and removing these options altogether). With better memory you can fully tweak the BIOS settings related to memory because the better memory has stronger specifications. Doing this can definitely improve performance. Benchmarks also prove this is true. Generic memory on the other hand fails to meet the demand these BIOS settings require. Even though you never touch the BIOS my point is that better memory has stronger specifications (CAS rating, support for faster FSB, chip yield, etc) than the generic kind.

On top of all this, quality memory does not always cost so much. True, Corsair does cost quite a bit, but Crucial is reasonably priced and a great company on top of that. Mushkin memory is also highly regarded. If you do not care to know or look into the specifications of memory, simply go to www.crucial.com, find your motherboard model and buy accordingly. Never have to worry from there.

You would not believe the problems we've had when memory begins to fail on a machine. Random reboots, blue-screens, and so on and no one ever suspects the memory.