Which is better - more ram or faster ram?

For the price of some Mushkin top shelf 256 meg ram I can get a slice of 512 meg generic ram.

Let's say both sticks are stable - What is the performance advantages memory size-wise vs. speed?

What will the benchmarks show?

I ask because I really need a lot of ram for the programs I use. At the same time I am sold on high quality ram having a big hand in stablility. But what to jump on?

If you need a lot of ram for the programs you use then get more ram.

Instead of looking at large amount of cheap ram or small amount of high quality why don't you just go inbetween and get some decent qaulity of large amount? (that sort of makes sense, right)

Unless you are going to get 50mhz or more on that 256meg, I would go with the 512. XP runs better with 512.