memory question for upgrading my KT3 Ultra2 mb

Hi - I have an MSI KT3 Ultra2 board, currently housing an AMD 1800+
and 256Mb 2700 ram.

I want to upgrade my system and have heard this board will support an
AMD xp 3000 333FSB with a bios upgrade.

I am also thinking of upgrading to a gigabyte of ram.
My existing 2700 256Mb currently occupies 1 slot of my 3 memory slot
mb.

My questions:
1. would it be best to get 1 x 1Gb or 2 x 512mb dimms? I can get an
unbranded 2700 1Gb cheaper than the cost of 2 x 512Mbs... is there any
difference?

2. since I'm not going to be overclocking, just going with best
standard settings, would there be any advantage with going with
branded memory, or should unbranded 2700 memory be fine?

3. would there be any advantage/disadvantage, of including my old
256Mb dimm along with the new 1Gb (in either 1x1Gb or 2x512 formats) ?

4. can anyone suggest a better upgrade option?

Thanks

 

1: don't crosspost so much.



2: Don't chince out on the memory. It's a crap-shoot otherwise. Get 2
branded sticks of 512, set the to speed and forget about it.

 

By all means get the one stick of 1 gig, but I wouldn't get PC2700. Get
something faster . It should be that much more.

I'll give you my advice. Buy fast, buy cheap. Many others will disagree,
but I've got a lot more money saved than they do.

Nope. Might even cause problems. 1 Gig is more than enough.

Get a new board that supports a 200MHz FSB and then buy a cheaper 2500+
and clock it to a 3200+. Sell your old MB, cpu and ram as a combo on ebay.
It'll probably end up cheaper that way too.

Cross posting removed.