512 bh-5 or 1 gig slower ram?

After playing farcry and unreal tournament 2004, I realize that 512 mb of ram is not really cutting it anymore. However, since i have bh-5 ram it would be kind of hard (and expensive) to upgrade to 1 gig.

My question is, would i experience better performance with newer games by:
1) keeping 512 bh5
2) selling this ram, and buying 1 gig of slower ram (maybe that khx 3000 thats supposed to be ch-5)

I'm going to have to face the exact same decision as you. I think I'm going to wait a while until the prices of memory chips go back down. Even though that will lower the value of my BH-5, I just couldn't afford a gig of memory right now, even if i do sell the BH-5.

You might not be in the same situation as me, but basically the faster the fsb is, the more frames you will get. However, if you have more ram capacity, games like Far Cry won't have to pause and load as much. The thing is...the drop in frames from lower speed memory may not be that much compared to the quicker loading times of more memroy. It's sort of a trade-off, but I think I'll wait and see what the prices are going to do.

It would cost you around 200 for another 512MB stick. I sold my 512MB stick of Mushkin PC3500 for 180 and 1GB of it for 400. I still have a 1GB for me

So about how much money could i expect for 2x256 of bh5?

Here is a link for 512 ch5
http://www.tblmemory.com/shop/view_product.php?product=DD4002-512/WC

If i could make about $180 for my bh5 thats almost the price of 1 gb of ch5...

You're Intel, that bears significant weight in this situation. BH-5 is no "faster" than anything else, it just supposedly overclocks better, I notice you're at 290FSB, which is.... high. That's quite a predicament. - I wrote a whole bunch and then remembered memory dividers. I'd get some cheap PC3700 or so and just call it a day.

I agree. I think in your situation you'll notice better performance by loosing a timing or two and doubling your memory density. Your bandwidth will hardly be affected, while the overall feel of most applications and games should improve quite a bit.

ok thanks a bunch everyone

now i gotta get a good deal for this bh5