In my old computer, I had 3 completely different RAM chips from 3 different scrap computers - one of each 64 MB, 128 MB and 256 MB. It recognized the RAM just fine - how well it accessed the RAM is a different story, but they were very different chips running at very different speeds.

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Original post by Spodi In my old computer, I had 3 completely different RAM chips from 3 different scrap computers - one of each 64 MB, 128 MB and 256 MB. It recognized the RAM just fine - how well it accessed the RAM is a different story, but they were very different chips running at very different speeds.

Yes, but I bet it wasn't running dual channel. I too have seen machines with mix and matched sticks of RAM, but none of them were running dual-channel.

If you mix RAM's width diffrent speeds they are all adjusted to the lowest speed. So if you have old slow modules there is no reason to buy a faster one if you are still going to use the old ones.

Well, I would recommend 2GB in general (because 2x1GB is hovering only slightly above $100 now) but based on the programs you listed and assuming that you will upgrade in a year, it seems like a waste of money. Even if you are running DDR2 it is probably on the slow end, so you will want to replace it then anyways.

If you were looking to push up your texture resolution in games or had to run more intensive programs like image/video/3d programs the 2GB now might be worth it. But otherwise, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Yeah, I think I am going to hold off for now. I just dropped $90 on a new (second) Hard Drive last week, and reformatted my system. It seems to be running a bit quicker than it was before, so I think that will carry me over until it is time to upgrade the whole system.

I appreciate the replies everyone.