What memory should I go with for my new rig?

[Moses]

It's been a while since I've built MYSELF a new PC and have had a serious itch lately to build something that I can connect into my home entertainment center.

I'm gonna go kind of extreme with this thing because it'll probably be used more than my main PC when it's up and running and it will be viewed on my Samsung 50" DLP

What I'm teetering between is what kind of memory should I get...something standard (Crucial, Corsair, Kingston) or performance oriented (OCZ, Crucial, Corsair, Kingston).

The motherboard supports DDR2 533, 667, and 800 and I want to go with 2GB and something running 667 or 800 (yeah it's been a while and I'm behind on memory technology).

No, I'm not a gammer at all! You're gonna ask why I want to go so extreme...it's because I can!

Specs for the rest of the rig:

Shuttle XPC SD39P2 - Intel 975X Chipset
Intel Core 2 Duo - E6420 2.13GHz
Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro (512MB, PCI-e)
2 - WD 320 or 500GB SATA/300 HDDs running in a RAID1 config (might go with 3 running a RAID5)
Lite-On SATA combo drive


Thanks!

[ballistic5]

i use kingstion ram in 90% of the computers i build or upgrade. and never run into an issue. and it is a little cheaper. go with the raid 1, unless your running a server raid 5 is just overkill

[Choco]

the corsair XMS2 is a fantastic RAM, nice overclockability and low power consumption.

the GPU will be able to handle the 720p and all associated functions, so your RAM wont do much for your video. but it will help processes to run quicker.

[bzbatl]

Without knowing what apps you're going to run, little can be said about your RAM choices.

Seeing that you're hooking it up as an A/V system, HD Video encoding is *probably* the most strenuous app you'll use. I think with most you'll do with it, you'll see very minor increases jumping from 667 to 800, and even from decreasing the timings.

But then again, if you don't care about money, just get the best and fastest that's available. Screw it!