How to maximize performance with a weird(ish) setup

[The Goose]

All right, I am going to be trying to upgrade my parents' Dell to get it to run faster. Right now it has 4x256 MB DDR2-400 sticks (the mobo supports DDR2-400 or DDR2-533). Which way would be fastest?

Get 1GB stick DDR2-400 (cuz 533 would just run at 400, right?) and have 1.75 GB with 1GB in one slot and 256 in the other 3
Get 2x512 400 and put it in two slots for a total of 1.5 GB
Get 2x512 533 and put it in two slots alone for a total of 1 GB

Basically, I want to buy a gig and I want to know the best and fastest way to run it. Thanks in advance; I won't be able to come back to this for about 12-14 hours, so forgive me.

 

[Casval]

Of the 3 scenarios you described, the 2nd one has the most potential benefit, assuming that more than 1 GB of memory would be useful. Simply increasing speed like in the 3rd scenario is unlikely to do much more than increase overall system speed by 5% or so. The 1st scenario is likely impossible since many memory controllers demand having the same amount of memory in each channel.

My overall impression is that the money for a memory upgrade would be better suited elsewhere unless there's a need for memory space above 1 GB. Putting the money towards something tangible such as an improvement in input/output method is a nice choice. Better desks, monitors, speakers, keyboards, and mice tend to make computers much more enjoyable to use.

Alternatively a more practical use would be to purchase an external hard drive to make backups of the machine's data. Anyway, the point is that 1 GB should be plenty and there's no need to upgrade unless there's a specific application that would benefit.

 

[stain.]

I concur.

In most cases, more ram is better than the speed of the ram. that is most cases. 18gigs of pc100 might not be faster than 4 gigs of ddr2-8500.