I want your opinions on cheaper RAM. Use or ignore. I don't have alot of money to spend, so I'm looking at some of the cheaper brands of RAM on NewEgg. Your thoughts? Windows 2000 Professional SP4 Intel PIII 733 256k Coppermine / 144MB pc100RAM Coming soon hopefully AMD Athlon XP 2500-2800 512MB PC2700 RAM

Cheaper RAM is somewhat of a gamble. Memory chips are mass produced and all don't turn out to have the same specs. Some batches may be almost all excellent, another batch just the opposite. Generally speaking generic RAM will be somewhat inferior to branded RAM. That is not to say it won't work. Just more likely to give problems and less likely to be overclockable. In my experience the small difference in price is worth it. I will say this. Newegg usually doesn't sell junk. That said, they cater to different clientel. If you are looking for older technology RAM, like PC133 you can save a buck by watching the ads for places like Officemax, Bestbuy, CompUSA, etc. These companies sometimes use RAM as a loss leader item. I am typing on a machine with 2 - 512MB PC2700 Kingston value ram that I bought on sale at Officemax. This RAM was purchased at the same time as single sticks. I am running it in dual channel mode. I have had good luck with Kingston value ram. Hope this gives you some help.

I plan on buying PC2700. Windows 2000 Professional SP4 Intel PIII 733 256k Coppermine / 144MB pc100RAM Coming soon hopefully AMD Athlon XP 2500-2800 512MB PC2700 RAM

oh no dont get a 2800 and pc2700 ram! i would highly reccomend getting a mobile 2500 at newegg for about $95 and 512mb mushkin pc3200 for $78 with this setup, you can overclock to around 210fsb giving you a speed of about 2.31ghz-that's higher than a athlon xp 3200 runs at and that thing costs $200 besides, now a days, pc2700 costs as much as and usually more than pc3200 and even if you dont overclock you can still run your pc3200 at pc2700speeds what is painfully obvious to one person might be just painful to the other