Memory help for a newbie to Macrumours forums

Hi everibody!

This is is my first posting in these forums. Hope to be a good journey with all of you at my side.

From what I have seen by reading several posts you're excellent, tough sometimes overexcited. Be careful with your egos. But, hell, we macusers are almost all like this : passionate...

The Mac community is amazing!!!

But let's go straight to my doubt.
I'll buy in two weeks my first REAL Macintosh (I'm now using an old PowerMac 8200 at 120 Mhz ), wich will be the PM G4 533. Second hand but almost not used and perfect for what I need.
The trouble is that it comes with 128 Mb of Ram and that's short for OS X and anything else. First thing to upgrade will be, of course, memory. 256 or 512 Mb are mandatory. The obstacle is...price. Memory prices are going up and here in Portugal the prices asked in Apple stores go to more or less US$120 for 256 and $200 for 512 Mb.

The other way to go is to buy memory from the wintel stores where the prices are lower, since, as I suppose, there's no difference in specs between both if I buy careffuly. And that's why I need your help to get resolved some doubts:
-the ram used in G4 533 has a specification of 2-2-2. What this means? Is the definition of the Cas Latency of the memory chips?
-Cas Latency 2 (CL2) is the fastest memory, I think. Is this the memory used by Apple on the G4 533?
-since all the 512 Mb chips I see have all a CL3,I think it's preferable to buy two sticks of 256 at CL2, wich will be faster than a single 512 chip. Is it right?
-the chips used by Apple go to 7,5 ns. Of course is mandatory to me to find chips with equal spec. What could happen if I buy a chip at a higher or even lower value?
-makes: don't know if Micron memory is sold here in Portugal but Samsung, Hyundai and several others probably will not be difficult to find. Have you any preferences?
-if I opt to buy directly from the US, do you have any idea of the cost to send to Europe in normal post (kind of US Postal Mail) and some good internet stores that sell internationally Mac memory?

Thank you all!

In terms of help, you're the real thing!!!

Thank you.
I couldn't imagine so many posts in a so short time.

Arn, thank you for you warm welcome. If Apple recommend the use of 2-2-2 chips, then it uses CL2 memory...or are they using a 128 stick of CL3 Ram?

Shergar, I've checked the site of Macsolutions and of course prices now are higher (and don't forget VAT) : 128Mb at £34.08, 256 at £57.58 and 512 at £116.33 (including VAT). But that's not bad, it's cheaper than in Portugal. I'll check shipping costs later today. And thank you for remembering MacWorld magazine. It was not that far away from me.
About mrmemory I'll give them a chance. I'll see later with more care.

AlphaTech, so if as Arn says, the G4 comes with CL3 memory and I add new CL2 memory...I'm in the road of trouble. And you were right about prices in magazines: sometimes they are more of a calling to surf their web site or to call their phone line.

Again, thank you.

AlphaTech

I think I'll buy two sticks of 2-2-2, or Cas Latency 2, memory (at 7.5 ns), either from an Apple (but not in Portugal) or from an wintel store, but a name brand.
About that idea of swapping the 128 Mb original stick that's a good point. I'll check dirctly from Apple if it is Cl2 or CL3, and if it is CL3 I'll try to sell it and replace for another CL2 256 Mb stick.
A total of 768 Mb it's more than enough!

But now a question from someone that's still a Mac newbie: does Apple places any information, like Rom, or firmware, on the memory stick that ships with all Mac's?
If that's correct it's not a good move to get rid of original memory! Can I copy that info to another memory stick? How?