This is my first time really upgrading my system (despite a video card I put in there...a Radeon 9800 Pro), so I'm a little confused as to what exactly I need whenever I visit sites like newegg.com, zipzoomfly.com, and others, and hopefully an experienced panel such as this can help me answer some of the questions I have.

I have a 2-3 year old Dimension 8100, and rather than buy a new system (I'm just a poor starving college student, who has to buy his Ramen noodles in bulk...lol), a memory upgrade seems to be the best thing. But in my research, I've come across a few loose ends.

1) I know my computer needs RDRAM, but is RDRAM the same as Rambus RAM? While visiting zipzoomfly, I found Corsair made a memory unit that used rdRam in their description, while Kingston made a stick that used Rambus technology. Are these the same thing?

2) I've heard that the Dimension 8100 uses only RdRam, but while surfing this forum, I found a user with a problem, but his system specs referred to that he had a DDR Ram stick in his machine. Does the 8100 ONLY take rdRam, or could I use something more conventional like DDR Ram?

3) Sites like newegg.com have said, in their descriptions of rdram sticks, that "All 16-bit RDRAM should be used in pairs." Is this necessarily true? I'm just looking to upgrade my system to a 512 MB memory, but if this is true, does that mean I'll have to buy x2 256 MB RdRam sticks to do this?

4) Finally, not really a question, but I was hoping that if someone could give me some good advice, or a better explanation of memory upgrades, they could do it here. I have my system specs, and I'm looking for information, but valuable sources of info are hard to find.

If I could get answers to SOME of these questions, I would be very happy!