Does a request with Status 304 ping a website's server the same as a Status 200?

I am wanting to create an RSS Feed streamer to get news in real time as the feed is updated. I don't want to be too much of a nuisance to the website by constantly sending requests every couple minute or so. I was wondering if I stored the etag and last modified, and only returned data when status != 304, would the 304 statuses from the requests where RSS data hasnt changed cause the same strain on the server as constant 200 statuses. Essentially my question is, does the server/website pick up my requests with 304 statuses or do they only see my requests with 200 status where the request succeeded?