Need help buying RAM

[ST34LTH]

Sorry guys but im a complete Newbie to this

My Mobo supports:
Two 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM slots.
Single Channel DDR2 400/533.

and im planning to upgrade ram to 4gb, which ones would be good to buy budget is £100

Thanks a lot

 

[cmndr_andi]

What is your motherboard?

 

[ST34LTH]

I have a Foxcon san francisco 2 Mobo

heres a link

http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?i=spec_sanfrancisco2&ppn=PB81X06201

 

[cmndr_andi]

Cool, have a google for "PC2-4200 4GB" RAM. Specifically in a 2x2GB kit. Unfortunately, from what I can see, the price are over £100 for these kits.

What operating system do you currently have and how much RAM is currently installed?

 

[ST34LTH]

ok thanks for the help

I have Vista with 2gb ram right now, would i get better performance upgrading to Windows 7 or downgrading to Windows XP?

EDIT: Ok ive found this off amazon, what do you think?
Kingston ValueRAM - Memory - 4 GB ( 2 x 2 GB ) - DIMM 240-pin - DDR II - 533 MHz / PC2-4200 - CL4 - 1.8 V - unbuffered - non-ECC

 

[cmndr_andi]

You probably should remove the link and just quote the specs, but yeah - that stuff looks good.

I would also strongly suggest trying to sell your existing 2GB kit, as you should be able to claw some money back by doing that.

As for operating system, I would strongly suggest checking out Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade Retail version). This version gives you all the cool stuff of win 7, it includes the 64 bit version- so you should be able to address all your new RAM and the upgrade licence means you can buy it cheaper than an OEM version and transfer it to another computer if/when you get a new system.

 

[ST34LTH]

thanks a lot for the help mate, i think ill order it now

 

[thingemajib]

in terms of general performance, i think xp and win 7 are more or less on par

 

[ST34LTH]

yeh i think ill upgrade to Win 7, i gotta find out if theres drivers for the 64bit for my hardware, if not then ill stick with the 32bit

had vista for ages now, getting bored of it hehe

 

[ST34LTH]

ok ive installed 4GB ram now, im still on 32 bit and it shows that i have 4gb, the bios as well as the OS, my question is how do i know if the OS is using the 4gb or not?

do i have to upgrade to 64bit? or would 32bit use the full 4gb?

Thank you

 

[oli356]

Well you can see how much memory your using from things such as the gadget on the desktop. Or even in task manager if thats what you mean

 

[ST34LTH]

well for Total Physical Memory, its showing 3005MB so does that mean its only using 3GB?

Thanks for the replies

 

[cmndr_andi]

What is your graphics card and how much video memory does it have?

 

[ST34LTH]

i have ATI 5750 - 512MB