The naming convention that you speak of is the speed rating that that particular piece of ram has been tested to. For example a PC2700 stick of ram relates to a 166Mhz front side bus or a 333Mhz DDR speed. The higher the number the higher the RAM has been tested to and guarenteed to work but it will work at any speed lower. Take the number and divide by 8 to roughly get operating speed of the RAM PC4000 / 8 is 500Mhz. Having higher speed RAM and using it at stock speeds doesn't help you, the advantage of having better RAM is that you can overclock your machine as much as possible if you wish to.
PC3200 (400Mhz DDR) is the standard for AMD computers these days and is what all of the new of AMD Athlon64 computers use.
DDR2 Memory is what the industry is now migrating to. To put it simply DDR2 sticks runs at higher speeds and generally have higher number ratings. Do not confuse Higher speed with higher performance as DDR2 offers no real advantage in this point in time.
Currently Intel based systems are the only ones that employ DDR2 memory. It doesn't end up being a bad or a good thing except for upgraders hoping to reuse their last machine's memory in their hot new motherboard.
Personally I'd recommend an AMD Athlon 64 machine which would put you in the DDR catagory. If you don't think you will be overclocking then something as simple as 1GB worth of
PC3200 Corsair Value Select would work great for you.
If you have even an a slight though about trying to OC someday I would recommend something a bit faster Perhaps some
PC4000 Memory. Otherwise it's fair game for you to find the best deal as I did not search very much. There are many brands and models out there, just ask someone about what you choose before you buy in case there are any more suggestions.
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