I'm looking to upgrade from 1GB of RAM on my PC. I currently have 3 sticks: 1 x 512MB and 2x 256MB. All sticks are Kingston ValueRAM. 184pin, DDR 3200 (400mhz). But I have two problems.
1) I'm trying to figure the best cost/benefit.
2) I know nothing about all of the technical aspects of RAM. I heard I can get "pseudo" dual channel RAM? I don't know what the "timing" stuff means or anything. I just know my mobo takes 184pin, 3200 DDR.

1) Value stuff...
Assuming I stick with Kingston ValueRAM...
a) I was thinking of spending around $90 to get a 1GB stick to replace a 256. That would take me to 1.75GB for $90. Net gain .75 GB.

b) Another option was to get a 2GB pack (2 x 1GB sticks) for around $170. That would take me to 2.5GB if I replaced both 256 sticks. Net gain of 1.5 GB.

Twice the cost gets me about twice the RAM. I might save a few bucks getting 2GB together because the package costs less and I'd pay only one shipping fee.

Another option is the ditch the Kingston stuff (not knowing if it's crap or not) and start from scratch. So, for $160 and up I can get various 2GB packages of 2 x 1GB sticks. The thing is, I don't know anything about the differences. My only clue was to stick with a known company, but since I'm not a hardware guy, I don't know many companies. Cost would be about $160 with a gain of 1GB.

2) Technical Stuff..
Like I said, because I don't know much about RAM specs, I don't know if it's worth switching from Kingston, and even if I did, I wouldn't know what was good or not. Here's the link again for the 2GB ram packs on Newegg.

Most of my PC usage is pretty run of the mill with the exception of Battlefield 2. That's my main reason for upgrading. My mobo is a Asus with a AMD Atlon 64 2800+, 754 socket. ATi Radeon x700.

Yikes their stuff is expensive! I found that my system doesn't support dual channel, so that won't be an issue. Additionally, my mobo slows the memory speed once a 3rd slot has been filled. So, I may look to a 2 stick solution. Also, Battlefield 2 uses 1.3GB, so even 1.5gb would be enough.

Thanks for the link.

Just get the 2 x 1GB sticks, for a total of 2GB. If the sticks are from the same brand/batch, they should work in dual-channel mode as well -- giving a tiny boost in overall performance if the motherboard/BIOS support such.

Crucial is expensive, but worth it for "out of town" buyers because it will just plain work. For people in the USA, there are many cheaper options available.

I bought 2GB off eBay for one of the Dell notebooks we have here. Works great, half the cost of Crucial's product.

For desktop systems, I get noname Samsung/Hynex stuff from a local distributor. Never an issue with any of it all.

Cheers

I did find some Crucial memory on eBay that is about $200 shipped for 2 x 1GB sticks. So now my dilema is a) Buy from a reputible dealer and get a "so so" brand or b) buy from an eBayer and get a quality brand.

My motherboard is a socket 754, so it can't support dual memory channels.

The good news is that the top of the line 754 chip, the Athlon 64 3700+, has finally dropped from $500 to $200. And it looks like I could still sell my 2800+ for $70 or so.

There are other reputable brands. I've used Corsair before and had excellent results, other than a bad pair of sticks, which they swapped out for me with little effort on my part. But there are brands other than that, even.

$183 on NewEgg

You don't mention what OS you have (or I missed it via skimming your post), there are some limitations to recognizing over 3GB of RAM in a Windows XP environment.

-Zeke

What Mark said. Don't keep the old sticks around. Just get one or two 1Gb sticks. Using more than two pieces of different size, different brand, different speed RAM never did give good results, at least in the old days. I'd suggest overbuying for now so you can maybe reuse it in your next system (if you upgrade more than once every 2 years).

Kingston Value RAM has never done me wrong, but neither has Crucial. Crucial was much cheaper years ago; I'm not sure what happened. Also, I think Crucial and Corsair are one and the same. A few major RAM names are from the same company, but I get them confused.

On an odd note, I don't know if they still make "registered DDR RAM" anymore, but I'd recommend it. I built two identical machines, ABit KG7 Athlon 1.4, but mine with registered DDR and my friends with regular DDR. After 2 years, his RAM burnt out. Apparently, ABit boosted the default RAM voltage or something just to claim they had better performance. 4 years (?) later, my registered DDR RAM is still humming away while Google Groups reported many cases of burnt regular RAM. It's worth it to get good parts.