New PC, what RAM to use?

[ascian5]

Alrighty, come October, Intel kicks their Retail Edge Purchase Program back in, and I can get the Pentium 4 3.0C Ghz and the Intel Desktop D865GBF Motherboard, with a retail copy of WinXP Pro for $200. I can't pass this up, but it's time for a whole new system to be built and I just can't decide what RAM to use. The system-to-be is as follows:

3.0C Ghz Pentium 4 w/800mhz FSP and HT
Intel 865G Motherboard
1024MB ?????? RAM
Antec Truepower 430 Watt Power Supply
XASER III V2000A Aluminum Case
40 GB 2MB Western Digital IDE HD
120GB 8MB Cache Western Digital IDe HD
Geforce 3 (for the next couple months anyways)
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Sony 4x DVD +/-RW
Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
6-in-1 Media Card Reader
Logitech Z680 5.1 Surround Speakers

I'm big on 3D games, DVD encoding, lots of multi tasking so power and performance is key. From what my feeble mind can gather, DDR400 is what I'll have to go with for this system, and that's fine. But I'm really not keen on spending much over $300 for RAM, that's just ridiculous. That leads me to 3 questions.

1. What do you people think is the best bang for my buck, am I right in wanting/needing DDR400? Can this system support higher?
2. Should I just bite the bullet, and go with 2x512MB of OCZ PC3700 Gold like I want to?
3. Does all dual channel RAM perform better with 4 DIMMs as opposed to 2?

TIA

 

[FullRoast]

I like the Anandtech Memory articles for info. I thought this article was also helpful. Unless your going to be overclocking the FSB at 230 MHz or more, I don't think OCZ 3700 Gold is going to help you. At closer to stock 200 MHz FSB, you are better off getting PC3200 memory with tight timings. You could get 1 matched pair of Corsair 512 PC-3200LL DIMMS (1 GB) for $283 from newegg.com.