[crs117]

Citi,

You are thinking about it all wrong here. DDR stands for double data rate ram. So 512 megs are just like 512 megs of normal ram in terms of quantity. The difference lies in the speed. sdr ram (single data rate) works differentely. See sdr ram is accessed once per bus cycle meaning that if you are running 133mhz bus your ram is being accessed once per cycle and is running at 133 mhz. DDR ram accesess the ram 2 times per bus clock cycle (at the rising edge and falling edge of the clock pulse), so it runs at twice the bus speed. If your bus is running 133 then your ram is running at 266.

So its just faster. Unfortunately ddr ram is not quite as fast as RDRAM but...they are working not only on faster bus speeds (which means faster ram) but also quad clocked ram (QDR), but a new motherboard will be needed to use it.

As far as performance is concerned hook up as much ram as you want in win xp (ram is cheap), and get the ddr ram. It is faster then sdr, and its almost as cheap.

Christian