How do I tell if RAM is good RAM?

Sceptre

In short, I'm not sure how to tell if RAM is good/bad/average. I know it has something to do with clock speed and what not, but I'm very unsure of how it all stacks up. I'm also unsure of how to tell if RAM is supported by my motherboard or not. Im running an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium motherboard, if that helps.

Currently I'm running some Kingston RAM with the following specs:

DIMM #1

General
Memory type DDR
Manufacturer (ID) Kingston (7F98000000000000)
Size 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3200 (200 MHz)
Part number K
Serial number 603E0A04
Manufacturing date Week 35/Year 06

Attributes
Number of banks 2
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Registered no
Buffered no
Nominal Voltage 2.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 133 166 200
CAS# 2.0 2.5 3.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 2 3 3
RAS# Precharge 2 3 3
TRAS 6 7 8

Right now I have 4 of these plugged in, to give me 2GB of ram. I'm thinking of upgrading to 4GB (Meaning I'd have to buy 4 new sticks) to help out with Windows vists 64 bit.

What should I be looking for? This is the store that I would be purchasing it from, if you guys don't mind taking a look.

JAEF

From the manufacturer's website after a quick google of your motherboard name:

4 x DIMM, Max. 1 GB, DDR 400/333/266 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture

is what your motherboard supports. Looking at wikipiddle it looks like DDR 400=200mhz=PC3200, so the RAM you have now is the fastest type your motherboard supports. If you're looking to expand your RAM (with the system you have I'd honestly recommend a new computer completely) then you'd be looking at anything here. If you are looking to run your RAM dual channel (recommended, will give you faster speed) and don't want to simply replace the stick you already have you probably want to pick up another 512 stick or just go balls out and splurge the whopping $40-60 for a 2x1GB dual channel kit (in which case you would remove the 512 and keep it as a backup, as it will piss on your dual channel parade.) Any more than 2GB would go to waste on the system you're likely to be running off of that motherboard.

Edit: Fucking Canadians

Sceptre

Well, I already have 2 GB of Ram, via four 512 Sticks of that kingston stuff. Right now, I'm not too sure which the biggest bottle neck on my system is. I'm assuming the RAM, but I also have an older processor (AMD 64 X2 4200). I'm trying to see what the easiest way to upgrade would be. I'm not terribly interested in doing a completely new upgrade, but I'm interested in what you guys have to say.

JAEF

Sceptre wrote: »

Well, I already have 2 GB of Ram, via four 512 Sticks of that kingston stuff. Right now, I'm not too sure which the biggest bottle neck on my system is. I'm assuming the RAM, but I also have an older processor (AMD 64 X2 4200). I'm trying to see what the easiest way to upgrade would be. I'm not terribly interested in doing a completely new upgrade, but I'm interested in what you guys have to say.

Well if you have 2 gigs already you're pretty much set. Honestly unless your graphics card is really bad you're not going to gain too much from upgrading it as your processor will bottleneck you, and you can't upgrade your processor because the 939 socket is dead. 775 is the wasp's anus, and even that's being phased out right now.

There's really nothing to consider except a system revamp.

Ego

2 gigs to 4 gigs is sensible in Vista, it has a heavier memory footprint than XP.

If you're finding the performance lacking, you could always overclock the CPU. That's definitely what I'd do if I found the system a bit slow (and the motherboard is good for it, you can even do software overclocks in windows on that board.) OC + 4 gb would probably make it feel significantly quicker .