Single 512MB DDR or Dual 256MB DDRs?

[Shockwave44]

I'm upgrading my entire system (everything but the ATX case and floppy drive). It's been a few years sence my last upgrade and I don't really keep up with all the new hardware. I found the chip I want which is a P4 / 2.4 Ghz / 512 cache / 533 FSB. Now I'm tring to find out what MB and ram I should get. From what I have read here so far the SiS 645DX chipset is pretty decent however theres quiet a few differant brands (and price ranges) to pick from and I'm a little confused as to what to get. Any suggestions would be welcome. Also I'm confused as weather I should get a single 512MB DDR or Dual 256MB DDRs. Would the dual give better performance? or do I need a certain kind of motherboard that would ultilize dual channel memory for it to make any differance? Also I'm wondering what type of DDR ram I should get, would DRR333 be the best choice or should I try to get DRR400? I'm going to be using this system primarly for gaming (First Person Shooter games) and 3D Level editing. I'm not going to be doing any overclocking cause I have no idea how. If anyone can answer some or all of these questions it would help me out a great deal.

Forgive My Igorance

 

[TKH]

For a P4 2.4GHz, you do need certain chipset to enable Dual-ch DDR and the best mobo around now is Gigabgyte SINXP1394, which uses SiS655 chipset and Asus P4G8X Deluxe, which uses E7502 chipset. There are now two chipsets which support Dual-ch DDR on Intel CPU, Intel E7502 and SiS655. E7502 supports Dual-ch DDR266 while SiS655 supports Dual-ch DDR333. As far as I know no P4 mobo officially support DDR400 RAM. But these mobo are quite expensive now anyway. You can alternatively choose i845PE chipset mobo which already mature in market, but these mobo do not support Dual-ch DDR and do not support AGP8X though.

My PC has gone to hell... because it's a killing machine...

 

[Shockwave44]

I couldn't find eather of those mobos. If I just get a SiS 648 then would a single stick of 512MB DDR333 ram offer better performance as oppost to two 256MB DDR333 sticks? Is there any differance? The two sticks of 256MB end up being cheaper. I wanna get whichever gives better performance.

Forgive My Igorance

 

[TKH]

SiS655 and E7502 are new P4 chipset which just hit retail market not long ago, but Asus P4G8X Deluxe and Gigabyte 8INXP are on shelf now. SiS648 doesn't support Dual-ch DDR, so if you use 2 sticks of DDR333, they can only running at DDR266, so 1 stick of 512MB DDR333 would be your choice.

My PC has gone to hell... because it's a killing machine...

 

[stupid_tech_geek]

I'm not too sure about pentium's but I have an asus mobo with a dual memory option and an amd processor. The point is, most dual memory eqipped boards will only realize a 4% increase or so in preformance. It might be worth it for you as you are going to be doing 3d editing.

Another Gatesware Drone. You WILL Be Assimilated.
My rig:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Running the "G" bios (no problems yet)
AMD Athlon XP1700
Abit Siluro GForce2 AGP
2x 256m crucial ram