Memory: Corsair DDR2-800
As we explain here on our Reactor's Memory page, DDR3 just doesn't make sense for that product, and it makes even less sense for the Ion. Since there's only a minor increase in gaming performance between DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066, the 800MHz chips are an excellent choice to keep the Ion's costs down without sacrificing the quality of your gaming experience.
Having settled on DDR2-800 for our baseline speed, we selected Corsair's XMS2 line of memory for its reputation for high performance and reliability. Corsair is by no means the least expensive brand, but unlike the unneccessary expense of DDR3, it is worth paying a little more to avoid the higher defect rate common to budget memory brands.
2GB is our minimum amount of memory on the configuration page, which is sufficient for 90% of today's games. It won't be long before games that benefit from 4GB of memory start appearing in greater numbers. As long as you choose a 64-bit operating system (see Operating Systems) you can easily add another 2GB of memory down the road. Unless you have a specific application you use that you know takes advantage of 8GB, it is pretty unnecessary for now.
