Asus P4C-800 memory choices

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Not into gaming,, so is 1g of dual channel overkill? What are good brands
for this board.....
 
Not into gaming,, so is 1g of dual channel overkill? What are good brands
for this board.....
Click to expand...

It depends on your uses of the system, and what you're
comparing, the other alternative to 1GB. For most people
spending a few hundred to put together a decent system, the
additional cost of 1GB isn't much, is worthwhile if you do
more than simple jobs on the system and/or leave the system
running for more than a day at a time- so more files are
cached into memory instead of being reread from the HDD upon
their subsequent accesses.

Presuming Windows XP, you can check current memory usage in
Task Manager, the peak value for your most demanding jobs
then add at least 128MB more onto that for additional
caching which is not reflected in that peak value.

Brands and grade depend on budget as well as board.
Crucial, Corsair, Kingston... whatever you buy should work
or you return it, that's the whole point of standards... so
buy name-brand memory from someplace with a reasonable
return policy.
 
Mostly doing surfing....cd and dvd burning.....kids play some
games......Asus has some reccomended brands, is it necessary to stick with
those brands?

TIA
 
Mostly doing surfing....cd and dvd burning.....kids play some
games......Asus has some reccomended brands, is it necessary to stick with
those brands?

TIA
Click to expand...

The surfing CD & DVD would get along fine with 512MB.
Games can vary widely, though after running one you can
check Task manager's peak usage and add a little padding for
the cache to come up with a minimal value.

With memory at pretty low price-points right now I'd go
ahead and get 1GB, even if you don't necessary need it yet.
Name-brand value-grade memory can be found online for less
than $90 per GB recently. No you don't necessarily need the
Asus recommended brands, that's just what they tested as
working. It is sometimes easier to buy two modules at once
though, so you then know if two modules together will be
stable, rather than buying one, then a year later having a
problem adding another module.

The problem adding another module could be that new module
or could be the first one instead... at a point when it may
be within it's specs but the board simply won't take two...
a bit of a grey area when memory meets JEDEC specs but won't
run, depends on if the manufacturer guarantees it and has
good return policies, if the vendor won't take it back at
that point. You might see what the going rate is for
CAS2.5 Corsair memory at Newegg.com, many people have good
reasults with that at a decent price-point when the market
is favorable.
 
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