What should I do about my RAM?

[spindle]

I have "a plan". I'm currently in the process of upgrading/minor-modding my PC. It's current spec is an Asus A7V333 motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (Thoroughbred).

I'm planning to upgrade the motherboard to an Asus A7N8X-E Delux with an Athlon 2800 Barton.

What I'd like to do is give my father-in-law my old case, PSU, motherboard (using the on-board video and sound), and processor, and add his old drives. Can't see any problem with this, except for the RAM.

He currently has an old PII-350, with 64Mb RAM, so I'll be scrapping his RAM. Now I could give him my 512Mb PC2700 RAM too, and go buy some new PC3200 DDR.
Or I could keep my RAM and buy him some el-cheapo 256Mb PC2100. After all, he uses his PC for running Word and Excel. And not much else.

Questions -

Will my existing PC2700 RAM work in my new motherboard, which apparently supports DDR400 (I assume this is another name for PC3200)? Is it (the mobo) backward compatible with regards to the RAM?

Would I notice much difference in using 512Mb PC2700 or the same amount of faster PC3200 RAM, seeing as I'm not really a gamer (my prime need for faster speed will be for home video editing with Pinnacle 9).

Ta.

[mike_w]

The PC2700 RAM should work in the new motherboard.

You will only notice a difference in performance with PC3200 rather than PC2700 speeds if the FSB of the CPU is 200mhz, since PC2700 is 166, and RAM and processor FSB are supposed to be the same.

Mike

[spindle]

Ta Mike. I think I might use my old RAM for a while then, and buy some faster RAM for me and give F-I-L my old stuff. Might mean he has to wait a bit longer for his PC, but that doesn't matter.