Quick question about RAM

I just got a single stick of 1 gig DDR333 RAM from a friend to replace my old slower memory. Now my system has two memory slots and I was wondering if I was better off having this RAM installed all by itself and leaving one slot empty, or also using my old memory card of 512 MB DDR266 RAM as well.

One option will give me 1.5 gigs of memory but since the memory will run at the speed of the slowest componant it will only run at 266 MHz. Also, I'm not sure, but might there be compatability problems with sticks with different speeds? The other option has less memory, only 1 gig, but will run at the fastest speed possible on my system, 333 MHz.

Any suggestions as to which one is better, considering this is mostly a gaming upgrade? I really don't know how much more useful memory in excess of 1 gig is.

You're right there are usually compatability problems between different vendors as well as between different speeds, so you could try it if you really want both sticks in, but ther'es a good chance the performance will be worse than the extra size. I would recommend just using the 1 gig.

Use the 1gig. You won't see much of a difference in performance boost between 1 and 1.5 gigs of ram since most games are built for 1gig or less (much less in most cases) anyways. Plus the performance hit you'll take will ........ you off anyways.

And in most cases, different speed RAM modules aren't a good idea.

Thanks guys! Man I love clean cut answers :D