Either Choice A or B

i have a p4 2.4ghz w 533FSB
gigabyte 8pe667 ultra mobo
512 mb pc 2700 crucial Ram

all this in large Antec plusview case my cpu runs at 31C on average even when gaming etc

basically i shoulda gotten faster ram so my question is this:

would my system run better if i swapped my 512mb pc 2700 crucial stick with a nice 512mb stick of xms pc3200 memory and OC'd a nice bit

or

would i be better off spending the money on another stick of 512mb pc2700RAM and throwing that in for a total of a gig worth.

which would run better?


i primarily use this rig for sound editing, gaming and general putzing around.

so if you are asking what would be better, faster or more RAM...
I have a few questions for you.

What FSB are you runnin your computer at? as PC2700 is rated for 166x2MHz... so unless you have your computer running at 166x4Mhz FSB(666), it doesnt matter if you put in faster RAM as the RAM is only going to work at the speed you have the FSB set too.

Now if you are running at 183x4MHz FSB or something like that, you RAM may be holding you back... but as you give no indication of your CPU being overclocked, I would say the PC2700 is overkill for your computer and dont waste your money on faster RAM that you will never run at its rated speed.

Now as for will more RAM help you? Keep Windows Task Manger open and use your computer as normal. Now look and see how much RAM you are using and how big your page file is. If you find that you are using LOTS of RAM, more than 512MB worth, then you will know you need more RAM.... If you find that you only use around 300-400 MB when doing all your fancy sound editing, more RAM wont help you all that much anyways.

May I also ask what kind of memory timings you are currently running? as that should be the 1st thing you do to help preformance before spending money you may not have to spend

p4s can be run async with the mem running faster and unlike an amd actually use the bandwidth so he could run his mem at 166 with a 133fsb on select mobos, im an amd guy and have never owned a p4 so i dont know if there are issues running async but i do know p4s can use much more bandwidth than athlons so if there are no issues running async you would get performance increases

i got it running at 166mhz FSB very stable. my timings are pretty much not tweaked out. if i go lower than cas 2.5 my system gets unstable.

would faster ram so i can tweak out my timings really make much difference? say running at 170mhz cas2

runnign at a faster speed will make some difference.... but if you are running out of RAM, adding more will make a bigger difference even when running at a slower speed....

Have you tried to run your current RAM past 166MHz? and have you tried to increase you RAM's voltage as that would help you get highder speeds and lower latencys.