At the moment I have one 256mb stick of PC2100 DDR-RAM (266mhz) and I want to upgrade this in the very near future. My athlon Xp 2000+ has a 266FSB and I was told to match the speed of my RAM with the FSB, would it be best to triple my ram with another 512mb stick of PC 2100 RAM, or replace my current stick with one stick of PC 2700 or maybe even use one 256mb stick of PC 3200 RAM. Any suggestions. Help is much appreciated. P.S I don't do much video editing but I am an Avid gamer and occasionally in my newer games I get a message saying windows is resizing my virtual memory because I have run out, I also have a considerable number of applications running in my taskber including norton. Thanks again.

check crucial.com & confuse them. get a matched pair of 256 DDR 2100.

Hey, i recomend you get a matched pair of 256MB PC2100 DDR (2X 256MB) made by a higher quality brand, just like sonnysandiego suggested. I have 512MB (2X 256MB sticks) of Elixir (Average Brand) in my XP2200+. About 6 months ago i was running 1x 512MB stick and 1x 256MB stick of PC2700 DDR and it ran a lot poorer as to what it runs now. If you don't do a lot or any Video editing/CAD/audio conversion stuff i don't think you need more than 512MB of RAM. Daniel

You don't need a matched pair unless you're running your memory in dual channel mode...of course, you'd need a dual channel motherboard. I don't know what motherboard you have or what your FSB options are, but you may be able to run it at 166mhz/333FSB (PC2700) or 200mhz/400FSB (PC3200) provided your memory & other components can handle the speed increase, & if you lower the multiplier enough to bring the CPU speed reasonably close to the design speed. Your 2000+ is designed for 1667mhz (12.5 x 133mhz)...you can try it at 8.5 x 200, 10 x 166, or 12.5 x 133 (default). I think 512mb RAM should be enough for your needs, especially if you go with a higher FSB setting. You can always get more later...

I don't know how to, or would unlock my Palamino core Athlon. I also found out my Gigabyte Ga-7va will only use Pc3200 ram when a 333FSB CPu is being used. Will I get that much of a performance boost if I buy an Athlon 2700+ thoughorbred and 512mb of 400mhz RAM, My ga-7va doesn't have dual channel and is using the VIA kt400 chipset. Some other specs are a Radeon 9600 pro VIVO, 40gb 5400rpm seagate, and a sony DRU-510A DVD+-rw. I don't particularly want to upgrade any other parts but if it benifits my gaming a lot then I will. Thanks again.

Before buying whole new parts, I would just buy one fast stick of 512...Then if you find you need more ram, you can slow it down and add what you have now, OR if you find that your system is still too slow and you want to upgrade your cpu you'll have fast ram ready for that...That's what I'd do anyway. What I wouldn't do is bother with another stick of 256 or more slow ram, unless your board has four slots AND you get it real cheap. -C

Also: Because your motherboard won't use it, doesn't mean you can't buy 3200. Your mb will just run it slower...