Satisfied with the performace of my PC, except...

I want more RAM. I have 2GB of PC3200 RAM and I was thinking of increasing to 4GB, but the only motherboards that support 4GB or more also only have PCI-E slots.

Incidentally I am satisfied with my 8x AGP Radeon X800XL which runs Oblivion and the other small amount of games I play just fine.

So now I am stuck. Basically I have to either buy a whole new getup or what?

This is what I currently have:

P4 Prescott 3.0gHz
2GB PC3200 RAM
X800XL Ati card

What would you suggest to replace those four items, for better or comparable speed, with four gigs of RAM?

 

bump

 

The Intel D865 Perl will support your existing hardware a 4GB ram.
http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d865perl/index.htm

 

why are you looking to get more RAM?

 

what motherboard do you have right now? Tons of p4/AGP motherboards support 4x1GB modules.

 

Hmm it appears to me that you have a bottleneck in that comp, my advice... Hawk the vid card you have and buy one of the new Nvidia's for the AGP I think they have 7800GT now man thats alot better. Is 2GB max for your system?

 

It only supports 2GB, and I was thinking of getting more seeing that I burn two things at once often and always have a ton of programs open.

How much faster would this system be over what I currently have:

AMD AM2 X2 Dual Core 5200+ and motherboard: $244
4GB (2x2GB) PC2 6400 DDR2 800 RAM: $215
ATi Radeon X1600 512MB PCI-E: $120

 

Hrmm for the RAM, I know you are looking at the Dominator's with the nice fancy heat sinks huh? "Screw Them"... Read on NewEgg about that ram man... Every other person got a defective set either 1 or both came DOA... Watch out man Also check out this, its a better deal while it lasts and its cheaper then Newegg and Still the same kinda Ram you know EPP 4-4-4-12 and stuff Corsair , but its cheaper see http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=85025-6

LIFE TIME WARRANTY MAN! For multitasking you should be fine as long as you dont run VISTA

And there are always alternative routes for speed too, like Better HD get a Raptor or something or a 3GB'/s SATA II HD Maybe even try Defraging too

Frank- :banghead :spam

 

That's not the RAM I was talking about.

 

What RAM did you exactly look at (make and model). I just get instant alarms going off in my head when I see 4 gigs for just over $200, especially without seeing the manufacturer. Also check to make sure that the RAM you do choose will work in the motherboard you choose. I know alot of ASUS boards don't really like cheap RAM. You can usually look up the certified list from the manufacturer's website.

 

http://www.pricewatch.com/memory/pc2-6400_ddr2-800_2gb.htm

 

Yea, I'd avoid RAM like that. Just my personal opinion, but I'd go with something like Corsair XMS (quite a bit more expensive). Also with the XMS you'd have to go with 4x1GB. Otherwise G.SKill and OCZ usually make decent RAM from what I've seen and read with a medium price. The OCZ and G.Skill I think are usually around $315 or so for 2x2GB.

 

why avoid it?

 

I would stick with what you got. At least until you are ready to upgrade to 64 bit vista. Also keep in mind that there is a real crunch on RAM right now. Prices are bound to slip once the vista memory upgrade craze has passed, say autumn. Also driver/software support will hopefuly have come a long way at that poing making the upgrade much less painful

Read the thread I started on memory addressing. You dont mention your operating system, I assume its XP SP2 which will only see 3GB anyway.