adding memory to 533fsb board HELP

[shasta777]

I have an asus 533 mobo and 512mb of pc2700 memory. I am thinking of upgrading more memory. I was thinking of buying a cheap 50 dollar 128 stick of pc133 memory. Would it make a difference? I played the doom 3 demo and ran 3dmark03 and i'm dissapointed with the performance. Would I be able to take advantage of rambus memory? Please give me any suggestions to make my pc faster. Thanx.

My specs are:
asus 533fsb
p4 2.26 overclocked to 2.6 and 663 fsb
512mb pc2700
Geforce 4400 overclocked to 4600 speeds (300/650)
dual 80 gig hard drives
audigy gamer
plenty of cooling

[Janak Parekh]

I have an asus 533 mobo and 512mb of pc2700 memory. I am thinking of upgrading more memory. I was thinking of buying a cheap 50 dollar 128 stick of pc133 memory.
Won't work. DDR SDRAM (which you have), regular SDRAM, and Rambus DRAM (called RDRAM) all have different connector types. It looks very similar, but look closely - the notches are in a different place. You can only use DDR.

That said, DDR is not that much more expensive anymore - just shop around. However, I cannot urge you strongly enough to buy good quality RAM... bad RAM will only give you headaches.

The other major upgrade, in fact probably more important for games like Doom 3, is to get a faster video card. A Radeon 9700/9800 will play Doom 3 much more nicely. Honestly, though, I'd wait until Doom 3 nears release... or at least until the 9900 comes out, since the 9700 will go down in price.

--janak