I'm trying to decide how to run my PowerEdge 400SC.

Right now I'm trying out 896MB @ 400MHz. Seems ok so far. I can run FireFox, Quake III Arena, and Putty simultaneously.

But what would you choose?

I'd say go with more. I was running 1GB PC3200 in dual channel, and went to 2GB PC2700 in dual channel, and noticed significant improvements in some things. Even dropping down to 1.5GB PC2700 was faster - but to be honest, I wasn't really bottlenecked at any point. Just sounds better when you say you have more than 1GB RAM.

generally I would prefer more ram @ slower speeds than less ram @ higher speeds especially in your case where you would double your ram.

What is Putty? Is it memory intensive?

a SSH/telnet client, so no it's not memory intensive.

I for one don't think you'll see much gain with the larger amount of RAM. you've already got a lot, and with the applications you're mentioning you shouldn't be close to using all of it. Maybe if you add Photoshop or Word or something in the mix the larger amount of RAM would be more important.

I never liked putty, have you tried SSH Secure Shell, I like that much better.

Why don't you like Putty? Small app, small memory usage, free. SSH secure shell costs $, doesn't it?

I'm curious to know why you don't like putty too. It seems to do the job well enough. I like the unix-style cut & paste.

9:1 !

X 3 is better than X 1.

Unless you are an fps-freak, where a 2 fps loss can make you suicidal, go with more mem. More is always better, and the difference between DDR333/400 will be miniscule. Then again, you would have to consider the actual memory timings --- good quality DDR333 will often be FASTER than value-brand DDR400. (I'm talking about the CAS/RAS-to-CAS strobe, etc.)