Need advice on what's best, opty 165 with ddr600 RAM or 170 with ddr550

I'm selling my 4400+ and going to get an opty 165 or 170 (trying to get a little extra cash)

So in the aspect of more cash, the Opteron 165 is the way to go....but for me to hit 2.7Ghz I'll have to do 300Mhz HTT....and in trying to find mem that will definitely do 300 Mhz, all i really come up with is TCCD RAM...but it looks to me like it's 512MB Sticks only. So I'd have to do 4 sticks, meaning 2T timings for my AMD.

Another option is to spend a little more money and get a 170, I can then do 2.7 at only 270Mhz HTT, and hopefully even 2.8 @ 280. There are 1GB sticks that will do 280 a lot easier than 300.

ANOTHER option is to just get some good 1GB sticks and go with the 165 and run with dividers. But I've read that A64's aren't super dooper swell with dividers.

SO i'd really like some knowledgable suggestions/recommendations/opinions on what I should do here.

Oh BTW, I'm RMAing my 2x1GB Ballistix. One stick went bad.
I'm hoping that I can RMA them to Newegg and get my full price back ($300). I'm waiting ffor a reply from someone else doing the same thing to see if they DO refund the full price since they no longer carry them. ...otherwise I have to RMA them through Crucial, get the replacements and then sell them on ebay or something.

SO I'll have $250-$300 to spend on this new RAM (less would be better)

As long as you have a decent MB capable of running high HTT dividers are for your convenience and work fine. If you really want to avoid them go with a 170, otherwise get a 165 and some good 2gig sticks.

If you want a recommendation of which RAM to get, I suggest Mush 4000 redline CE-5. The last batch clocked very well and I think there are still some avail if you order direct from Mushkin. I reviewed these sticks here.

are you able to say i you notice dividers hindering performance? I've read things both ways (that A64 chips are fine with dividers AND that they aren't)

I saw little to no effect on performance using dividers if the same speed is maintained, in 3d and in PI. If you want to do a comparo run 300x10 w/ 166 divider (250mhz ram, 3g cpu) and compare w/ 250 x 12 1:1 (250mhz ram, 3g cpu). Can be done with lower clocks too if you dont have an FX lying around.