Is Memory/RAM speed Important?

The weakest link is the hard drive. HDDs typically have a throughput of 15-50 MB/s, whereas RAM has a throughput of 1.5-3 GB/s.

The weakest link could also be the Internet, for example. It all depends on your application.

Ahh, but that's outside the computer and is therefore not part of the computer.

... Also, RAM is one of the fastest parts of a computer, regardless of what kind you use.

It doesn't matter if it's part of the computer or not. It's still a bottleneck causing [perceived] slowdowns for the end user. However, I agree that Internet speed does not have much factor in the "strength of any computer".

+1; I have hit nasty problems with RAM not wanting to keep up with my FSB, and vice versa. Luckily, I could adjust the memory bus multiplier, but this isn't always the case.

Up yours, too. I had problems with an eBay seller sending me RAM that was rated too high (hah, what an idiot). I didn't notice until it started making my computer crash. Likely a similar problem to yours. I thought of the way electricity likes to work, and how RAM may misbehave if it were in a circuit arranged in series. Switched the RAM chips and it worked fine...

There's also problems with voltage. Maybe the DIMM's can't handle the voltage your motherboard is giving it (i.e. the DIMM is breaking the spec (like most do ...)), so you have to manually adjust the voltage. Or maybe your DIMM is stressing your motherboard too much with its high voltage demands and you need to underclock the RAM to keep your motherboard happy. The easiest option is to just swap out the DIMM's for a different set, as you have mentioned, @Seb.

Well, DDR2 isn't cheap anymore, due to the rise of DDR3 thus reduced demand.

4 GB for $109 is pretty dang cheap.

I used to be able to purchase 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 for 40$. This was about two years ago. Now I want a DDR2 upgrade (to 8GB), but it's now way out of my budget. Either I have to wait until DDR2 dies down (in which case my parts are probably ancient anyway), or I upgrade my mobo, proc (I'm running Intel), and RAM for DDR3.

Indeed, DDR3 is fast becoming the alternative for new computers. As a result, manufacturers are starting to focus on what is new. As manufacturers stop producing DDR2, and demand for DDR2 rises, the price rises. I've observed and rely on this, as I bought heaps of DDR2 when it was at it's cheapest as an investment.

Touché. Agreed ddr3 ftw

Do you have benchmarks showing DDR3 is better for loading typical programs (Word, browsers, Photoshop) than DDR2? "Belief" doesn't cut it for me; I need evidence or blind trust. =]

Google it ...........

Multitasking is more about amout of memory than the speed of it; speed is more for doing one thing very quickly.