What amount of Ram is best bang for my buck?

I configured my T61p with 1 GB of DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) with the intent to upgrade it. The T61p actually does work out as dual channel RAM. My options are

1. $20 for a 1GB stick of memory, giving me 2 total and likely dual channel
2. $30-40 for a 2GB stick, giving me 3 total in asymmetrical dual channel
3 $70-100 for 2X2GB sticks. Yeah that's expensive.

By loosing "true" dual channel, will the 3GB of Ram perform worse than the 2 GB? I dont see the point in spending more for less performance. I also wouldn't likely buy the 4GB kit unless there was an *awfully* good deal on one somewhere. (yeah I know 32 bit will only access about 3.25 Gb of it). I guess I just want to know what setup doesn't cost me to loose money and performance.

It will be used with 32bit XP pro. I may go 64 bit Vista at some point, or even try xp x64 again (quirky but good experience with that). But yeah for the foreseeable future it is good old non memory hog 32 bit XP.

 

It's harder to get true dual channel working well from a after market upgrade imo.

Just go with a 2Gb stick; 64bit OSes still have compatibiliy issues with programs so might as well wait for your next laptop to try it (you'll have more RAM by then).

 

so did you buy the system already?
If you did not buy already, I would just get it with the lowest memory possible.

Than just buy a 4gb ddr2 pc 5300 memory kit for like $70 from newegg.
OCZ usually has rebates on their memory, for around $20-25 so you can get 4gb (2x 2gb) for like $50, which is a great deal.

Having dual channel is not really necessary, the speed differences are so small its unnoticeable. Someone here did tests and it is less than a 3% speed difference in the memory, so do not worry about it that much,


K-TRON

 

I bought it with a single stick of 1GB. If there was a rebate on one of the kits that brought it down into the $50-60 range (including shipping), I'd consider it. It just seems the cheapest thing is to either buy another 1 GB stick or add a 2 GB stick.

 

Go with the 2 GB stick, cause if you get another 1 GB stick, then you will have 2 x 1 GB which you can't upgrade to 4 GB in the future unless you change both sticks or you have to get the more expensive single stick 4 GB. Also, 3 GB will see a good difference in performance over 2 GB in total.