Which memory upgrade for Dimension 8400?

At Dell's web site

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/c...&mfgpid=166110

there are three part numbers for 1GB memory modules and
three prices. All specs match those displayed in my 8400's
setup screen, except Organization, which in my 8400 is "x8".

The three offerings have logical types of 128x64 for
$128.95, 128x64 for $118.95 and 64x64 for $61.95.

Is "Organization" related to the web site's term "Logical
Type"? If add-on memory has a different logical type than
installed memory, is that OK?

My 8400 has 2.0 GB installed. For best performance, which
part should I order to upgrade to 4.0 GB?

--David

"J David Ellis" wrote in message
...
At Dell's web site

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/c...&mfgpid=166110

there are three part numbers for 1GB memory modules and three prices. All
specs match those displayed in my 8400's setup screen, except
Organization, which in my 8400 is "x8".

The three offerings have logical types of 128x64 for $128.95, 128x64 for
$118.95 and 64x64 for $61.95.

Is "Organization" related to the web site's term "Logical Type"? If add-on
memory has a different logical type than installed memory, is that OK?

My 8400 has 2.0 GB installed. For best performance, which part should I
order to upgrade to 4.0 GB?

--David


Use the configuration tools at both sites and compare pricing:
www.crucial.com
www.4allmemory.com


Stew

On Thu, 30 Nov 2006 05:33:32 -0600, "S.Lewis"
wrote:


"J David Ellis" wrote in message
.. .
At Dell's web site

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/c...&mfgpid=166110

there are three part numbers for 1GB memory modules and three prices. All
specs match those displayed in my 8400's setup screen, except
Organization, which in my 8400 is "x8".

The three offerings have logical types of 128x64 for $128.95, 128x64 for
$118.95 and 64x64 for $61.95.

Is "Organization" related to the web site's term "Logical Type"? If add-on
memory has a different logical type than installed memory, is that OK?

My 8400 has 2.0 GB installed. For best performance, which part should I
order to upgrade to 4.0 GB?

--David


Use the configuration tools at both sites and compare pricing:
www.crucial.com
www.4allmemory.com


Stew



I'll second that on crucial.com. They usually educate me or
unconfused me when I'm lost. It's hard to remember what memory goes
in what pc/laptop when you have a handful of them in the house grin.

First of all, you don't want to upgrade to 4GB, at all, if you are
running Windows XP 32-bit. It won't support it (it may support about
half of it, at best). 64-bit Windows, however, should support it.

Second, the part labeled 64x64 is only 512MB, not 1GB. The first number
is the number of "words", 128 million or 64 million. The second number
is the width of each word, in bits. 64x64 means 64 million words each
of which is 64 bits wide. 64 bits is 8 bytes (a byte is 8 bits), so
it's 64 million words of 8 bytes each, which is 512 Megabytes.

I'm not sure what logical type means.

If your motherboard supports dual channel memory, the memory chips
should be installed in matched pairs of architecturally identical
modules. While it may be possible to two pairs each of which has the
same architecture (organization) within the pair but having different
architectures between the two pairs, I would not recommend this if for
no other reason than that if you ever have modules go bad, it would be
nice to have the remaining modules now be all the same.

Aside from the issue of support in Windows XP, there are VERY few users
who will gain significant performance in an upgrade from 2GB to
{anything more}. In fact, most users won't see much of an increase even
going from 1GB to 2GB. This depends on what you are doing, certainly;
heavy gaming and CAD need that quantity of very large memory, but for
most typical applications (e.g. web browsing and office software, even
photos, music and video), the benefits of adding more memory really
start to decline after even 512MB and by the time you get to 2GB the
additional gains from adding still more memory are near zero.


J David Ellis wrote:
At Dell's web site

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/c...&mfgpid=166110


there are three part numbers for 1GB memory modules and three prices.
All specs match those displayed in my 8400's setup screen, except
Organization, which in my 8400 is "x8".

The three offerings have logical types of 128x64 for $128.95, 128x64 for
$118.95 and 64x64 for $61.95.

Is "Organization" related to the web site's term "Logical Type"? If
add-on memory has a different logical type than installed memory, is
that OK?

My 8400 has 2.0 GB installed. For best performance, which part should I
order to upgrade to 4.0 GB?

--David

Barry Watzman wrote:
First of all, you don't want to upgrade to 4GB, at all, if you are
running Windows XP 32-bit. It won't support it (it may support about
half of it, at best). 64-bit Windows, however, should support it.


Yep, I installed 4GB in my Dimension 8400 and Windows XP Pro reports
3.25GB memory.

So I guess I've got 768MB sat here being unused and not capable of
being used.

wrote:
Barry Watzman wrote:
First of all, you don't want to upgrade to 4GB, at all, if you are
running Windows XP 32-bit. It won't support it (it may support about
half of it, at best). 64-bit Windows, however, should support it.


Yep, I installed 4GB in my Dimension 8400 and Windows XP Pro reports
3.25GB memory.

So I guess I've got 768MB sat here being unused and not capable of
being used.

Right, Dell has a blurb concerning this on the config screen for the XPS700:

"*Systems configured with 4GB memory or mo The total amount of
available memory will be less than 4GB. The amount less depends on the
actual system configuration. To fully utilize 4GB or more of memory
requires a 64-bit enabled processor and 64-bit OS."

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...XPS700NR&s=dhs