hello,
i am thinking of buying an ecs k75sa (w/new antec case and athlon xp 1700+ thoroughbred) to help bring my OLD celeron 366mhz w/256mb pc100 ram TO the bronze age (as opposed to the stone age). i'm upgrading a little at a time, spending less than $200 for the aforementioned case/mb/cpu and transitioning ram, hd, cd, pci video card, etc to the new system.
thereafter, i'd like to spend just around $100 a month upgrading this puppy. my first purchase would probably be a new hd (wd 80gb special edition for $115 at newegg.com). but the second purchase would probably be ram.
(now the long intro is over, here's my actual quandary...)
i can get 1gb of pc133 sdr ram for $102 (kingston valueram 512mb x 2). or i can get ddr ram (the k7s5a supports two dimms of each type, not simultaneously). i can't find any benchmarks or evaluations saying what's better, a large amount of sdr ram or a smaller amount of ddr ram.
if i try to keep to my ~$100/month budget, i'd only be able to afford one piece of 256mb ddr ram (say a NICE corsair xms pc3200 c2, even though the mb only supports up to pc2100, just in case i upgrade the motherboard later, which i definitely plan to do, not for a while, but since the ram's got a lifetime warranty, what the heck!), or i can splurge and get a single 512mb pc3200 c2 for around $200.
the question is, what's got the most bang for the buck: 1024mb pc133 sdr ram vs. 256mb OR 512mb ddr pc3200 ram, keeping in mind that i get 4x the amound of sdr ram for the same price as the 256mb ddr ram or twice as much sd ram for half the price of the 512mb ddr ram.
whew! any opinions?
i am thinking of buying an ecs k75sa (w/new antec case and athlon xp 1700+ thoroughbred) to help bring my OLD celeron 366mhz w/256mb pc100 ram TO the bronze age (as opposed to the stone age). i'm upgrading a little at a time, spending less than $200 for the aforementioned case/mb/cpu and transitioning ram, hd, cd, pci video card, etc to the new system.
thereafter, i'd like to spend just around $100 a month upgrading this puppy. my first purchase would probably be a new hd (wd 80gb special edition for $115 at newegg.com). but the second purchase would probably be ram.
(now the long intro is over, here's my actual quandary...)
i can get 1gb of pc133 sdr ram for $102 (kingston valueram 512mb x 2). or i can get ddr ram (the k7s5a supports two dimms of each type, not simultaneously). i can't find any benchmarks or evaluations saying what's better, a large amount of sdr ram or a smaller amount of ddr ram.
if i try to keep to my ~$100/month budget, i'd only be able to afford one piece of 256mb ddr ram (say a NICE corsair xms pc3200 c2, even though the mb only supports up to pc2100, just in case i upgrade the motherboard later, which i definitely plan to do, not for a while, but since the ram's got a lifetime warranty, what the heck!), or i can splurge and get a single 512mb pc3200 c2 for around $200.
the question is, what's got the most bang for the buck: 1024mb pc133 sdr ram vs. 256mb OR 512mb ddr pc3200 ram, keeping in mind that i get 4x the amound of sdr ram for the same price as the 256mb ddr ram or twice as much sd ram for half the price of the 512mb ddr ram.
whew! any opinions?