1GB or 2x512?

Nice board ya got here!
Yes, I am an UBER noob.
I am completing my new A64 rig, and will be using an nforce4 board. I want to start out with 1 GB or ram, then upgrade to more shortly after that. (Spreading the cost over 3 months)
With that in mind, should I get 2 sticks of 512, or just one 1gb stick?
Whats the difference?

Thanks for the help!

2x512 is prefferable

Why is that?
I am curious about the difference.

timings i believe.
most gig sticks have 3-3-3-8 (or so) timings, while dual 512 can default to 2.5-3-3-6, or even 2-2-2-5

Ahhhh... It makes sense now!
Thank you!

Plus using two sticks lets you run the memory in a dual channel configuration, which will blow the doors off single channel, bandwidth-wise.

if you are upgrading soon, get 1GB stick, then get a second one when you can afford it. as long as it is the same exact RAM...instead of eventually having 4x512MB

Stumpjumper5200 said:

Plus using two sticks lets you run the memory in a dual channel configuration, which will blow the doors off single channel, bandwidth-wise.

Click to expand...

oh yea, that too...dual channel is great if you can get it going

Id suggest 2x512mb of Mushkin "222" Special. You can run these dual channel @ DDR400 (PC3200) with 2-2-2-5 memory timings. These are the lowest timings that are possible on this particular AMD platform. Memory timings are very important to be kept as low as possible on any AMD system, but is not that big of a deal on Intel systems. If you are planning to overclock, you will be able to retain these timings and still get some extra speed out of your ram because the memory chips on this kind of ram are BH-6. These kinds of chips perform well with enough voltage. BH-5 will go farther than BH-6 with the same amount of voltage usually. However, BH-5 is somewhat rare, and kind of expensive right now. They arent in production anymore. I hope you have found this useful. If you have any questions, pm me. And Welcome to the forums!

SomaGaze said:

if you are upgrading soon, get 1GB stick, then get a second one when you can afford it. as long as it is the same exact RAM...instead of eventually having 4x512MB

Click to expand...

I think it depends on what you plan to do with the system if you really need 2GB or not, especially when you factor in the cost of it. I would like to see if anyone has done a review on gaming with 1GB and 2GB.