In fact, some can be tweaked separately (they have their own clocks) or some are smart enough that if your FSB is too high, they’ll clock lower so as to remain closer to the original spec.

Yup, heatsinks on memory don’t do nuts. They don’t run hot enough without heatsinks anyway. Try touching your RAM when they’re running. They feel warm, but they won’t burn your hands.

I think you can look for articles in Anandtech, especially with regards to ‘premium RAM’. Basically, they found that the low latency, heatsink equipped RAM is more like a hug con job… er… marketing campaign. Spend money elsewhere like hard drive (never too big or too fast hehe), better monitor, heatsink for your CPU (now, that’s important), PSU or whatever. Just not premium (priced) RAM that do nothing except look cool. Heck I’d even spend good money on wireless mouse and keyboard rather than RAM Or even… gasp… original Windows hahahaha

Heatsinks on memory don’t do anything except for showing off? Sure? It should help a little bit. No at all?

2. You’d need at least a DDR 667MHz. You’ve selected a 400MHz DDR2 module, so ideally, your bus speed should be 1600MHz instead of the default 1333MHz.

3. Both the memory modules you selected are ‘high performance’ ones, with low latencies. It’s been proven again and again that these provide <5% (0%-3%) performance for a very high cost. Why not just go for regular DDR2 800MHz instead of ‘HyperX’ and all that nonsense?

4. It’s also a fact that heatsinks on memory don’t do nothing except for showing off. Memory don’t run hot enough to do any damage.

5. If you save on RAM, you’ll have more cash for getting a good PSU and also a good air-cooler for your awesome CPU. Or maybe a Radeon HD4870x2

6. Windows XP/Vista 32-bit *can* address more than 3GB of memory via /PAE switch, but reports vary on whether you gain anything from it.

7. Still, it’s better to just stick with plain 32-bit OS. Why? Limited drivers, software (games) support for 64-bit OS.