Adding a 512 stick to my current OCed 2x256 Mushkin lvl2 special - what should I do?

Adding a 512 stick to my current OCed 2x256 Mushkin lvl2 special - what should I do?

Hi guys and gals,

Right now I have the following setup:


Abit NF7-S v2.0
XP Mobile 2600+ "IQYHA 0402" @ 2600MHz Prime Stable (will go further)
Mushkin lvl2 special 2-2-2-11 PC3200 @ 215fsb (need to push it further)
slk900a w/ Vantec Tornado 120mm
Windows XP Prof.
Leadtek Winfast A250 Geforce4 ti4400 almost at ti4600 w/128mb

I'm getting ready to upgrade both my RAM and videocard to put the pc where I want it to be from now on.

I know that my mobo will run RAM in dual channel with all three slots used as long as I use the same amount of RAM in each channel(2x256 in 1* and 1x512 in 2*). My only problem now is figuring out what RAM to get in order to get the best out of the whole 1Gb. I don't want to cheap out and bottleneck my Mushkin lvl2, and I want to get very compatible RAM as well.

Now this RAM that I have was refurb from newegg and *isn't* the same RAM as what Mushkin now sells as shown on their website (they now have version 2 with purple heatspreaders - probably different chips though I don't know - MY sticks have black heatspreaders).

So basically, what do I need to know about the RAM I'm trying to buy? What aspects matter? Chip-type? Brand? Speed? that kinda stuff.

I greatly appreciate all help. Thanks folks.

I put two different brands of memory with two different types of chips into a Dual Channel config & it works fine. both DIMMs are 16 chips, PC 2700, with 2.5-3-3-7 timings. Works great. I think so long as the DIMMs are electrically similar you're fine.