Building new 2GB system?

[aiken]

I'm looking at putting together a new worksetation; nforce4, athlon64 (3500+ 90nm, of course), a couple of 6600GT's in SLI (I'm more of a coder than a gamer).

What I'm stumped on is memory. All of the nice, low latency memory I've found (OCZ, etc) seems to only be available in 512MB modules. I definitely need 2GB of memory now, and the ability to upgrade to 4GB in the next year or two (plus, my understanding is that using 4 x 512MB is inherently slower on the athlon64 platform).

Can anyone recommend some performance memory that's available in 1GB modules? I don't need or want things that beep, have LCD's, glow blue, etc.

Thanks
-b

 

[Dan_D]

The reason it is slower is because it can't be run at 1T thanks to the A64's memory controller. So basically latency is the issue.

So it is better to get two 1GB chips rather than 4 512's. You of course would still have the problem of latencies with 4x1GB chips as you would with 4x512MB chips. So decide if you need ram performance more than ram size or vice versa and go with what you really need.

 

[(cf)Eclipse]

if you get 2x1gb now, you won't have to run 2t (patriot's ram can do 2-3-2-6 1t at 200mhz)
and then get a 90nm E core that can do four double sided sticks at 200mhz, and get the other two 1gb sticks

 

[aiken]

Thanks for the speedy responses!

Sounds like I should go with a pair of patriot 1GB modules for now, and worry about the 2T thing when I need to move up to 4GB.

Thanks!
-b