I currently am using an Athlon64 3800 single core (2.4Ghz) with a PNY Nvidia 7900GS. I am using 2 sticks of 512Mb DDR400 speed memory and want to upgrade to 2Gb of RAM. I understand that in some situations, there is a disadvantage of using four sticks of memory 512x4 for 2Gb over 1024x2 for 2Gb. How much of an actual performance hit will I take in FS9 by saving money and upgrading using 4x512 over having to purchase two entirely new 1024Gb sticks of RAM?Do memory timings matter in FS9?Thanks for any help in clarrifying this for me.RH

It will depend on your motherboard chipset, but generally there will be a slight slowdown with a second 2x512MB bank of DIMMs. Probably not enough to notice except in a benchmark test. That assumes the new DIMMs match the old ones very closely in performance. If the timings of the new DIMMs are different, the memory controller will clock everything down to the lower of the two.Memory timings do matter...in all programs. They define the number of clock cycles the CPU is kept waiting for memory events to transpire, so each tick up is a clock cycle wasted waiting for the physics of the memory array to catch up. As an example, my motherboard's relatively new chipset is having teething pains with memory running at greater than 800MHz...but by running my 1000 MHz-rated DIMMs at 800 MHz and 3-3-3-9-2T timings (as opposed to 4-5-4-11-2T at 1000 MHz) my memory bandwidth is just a few percent off of its rated capability despite a 20% reduction in memory bus clock speed.RegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300Santiago de Chile