RAM purchasing suggestions

I'm going to be upgrading my video card soon, but I'm also lacking enough RAM to meet the recommended requirements of some of these newer games (Unreal Tournament III, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, etc.)

My RAM type is DDR, and I currently have 1022MB RAM. My target is 2GB RAM, but there's a problem. I only have 2 RAM slots and they're filled with two 512MB RAM sticks so in order to add more I have to replace the old ones. I don't want to buy two 1GB RAM sticks because I feel a second 1GB RAM stick is just a waste of money because I already have two 512MB sticks.

I need your help on this, if there's any way I can add another slot or something like that, or if would 1.5GB be good enough? All the RAM sticks I'm looking at are too expensive for me, I'm kind of on a budget.

RAM Type: DDR

Motherboard Manufacturer: MSI

Motherboard Model: MS-6741

I currently have a GeForce FX 5200 and I am planning to upgrade to this

It's just that my RAM doesn't pass the recommended RAM requirements for games like UT3 on srtest.com. So I should probably replace one of my 512MB sticks with a 1GB RAM stick, or is 1022MB good enough?

I don't know much about ATI cards, but you might want to ask around and see if the card you're looking at is better then the RADEON X1950 PRO. I know they're both AGP cards, but I'm not sure which might be better.

As for your RAM question about games recommending 1GB or more....the way these games work, they do a lot of writing to and from RAM. The more you have, the easier it is for your PC to keep up the pace on the game. If you lack enough RAM, the PC then has to write to and from the hard drive, which slows the process down some.

Also, considering the fact that you're running off a FX5200, you might not have a good enough power supply to run a high end AGP card. I know when I went from my FX5500 card to the GeForce 7900 AGP,it required that I have at least a 400W power supply. My old computer was only running on a 250W or 300W (I don't recall which), so I couldn't even operate my computer. I picked up a cheap PSU that had 450W for like $20 and it worked just fine for about 2.5 years (I gave it my little brother, and my 7900 card when I got my new PC) before it finally died.

So, check the specs on the video card before you pick one up or install one and see if you need a better PSU. You can find good 400-500 watt PSU for a pretty decent price of $40-60 (give or take a little, depending on where you get it from).

I believe my power supply is 300W. How would I go about finding how much I need for that video card?

Also, about my RAM, so it'd just be best for me to not spend my money on another 1GB stick of RAM for a total of 1.5GB RAM. I'm getting the impression that 1GB is good enough. Opinions?

300W should be fine for the 2600. However, I would recommend not upgrading at all and getting the money together for an entirely new PC. If you are on AGP, DDR RAM and a 300W PSU it wont last you a great deal longer. (If you want to play the latest games. If not, go for it!)

With the RAM issue, I wouldnt upgrade to be honest. With an AGP 2600 card you will only be bottlenecking elsewhere if you get more RAM.

Oh I totally forgot to mention that I'm using Windows Vista Ultimate, which makes the game requirements higher than if I were on XP. For example, CoD4 is 1GB recommended for XP, but it's 2GB recommended for Vista. So considering that, would it still be not much worth in upgrading RAM to 1.5GB?

Also, is there a way I can check for sure that if 300W is good enough for the HD2600XT?

Just a quick bump, I need some final confirmation on this as I haven't upgraded my computer before. If 1GB RAM is enough to run games like CoD4 and UT3 on recommended and at a good framerate, then that's great (if someone could confirm this please).

Now all I have to worry about is the PSU, is 300W enough for an HD2600XT? Like I mentioned before, I'm on a budget and would like to not have to spend too much extra money.

Just a quick bump, I need some final confirmation on this as I haven't upgraded my computer before. If 1GB RAM is enough to run games like CoD4 and UT3 on recommended and at a good framerate, then that's great (if someone could confirm this please).

Now all I have to worry about is the PSU, is 300W enough for an HD2600XT? Like I mentioned before, I'm on a budget and would like to not have to spend too much extra money.

B3RZERK

Just a quick bump, I need some final confirmation on this as I haven't upgraded my computer before. If 1GB RAM is enough to run games like CoD4 and UT3 on recommended and at a good framerate, then that's great (if someone could confirm this please).

Now all I have to worry about is the PSU, is 300W enough for an HD2600XT? Like I mentioned before, I'm on a budget and would like to not have to spend too much extra money.

B3RZERK

My guess is that you won't be able to run the HD2600XT card on a 300W PSU. I strongly suggest you look into getting a good 400-450W PSU.