Diff. RAM

[BrewHaHa]

Im not a computer person.

Here are my Specs:

2.0ghz AMD Athlon
256mb DDR RAM
GEforce4 Mx420
80g hardrive


Well my question is, how do I figure out what type RAM i have, I mean like pc2100? My RAM is the only thing I want to update when hl2 comes out and right now I have found a good deal on 256mb DDRAM pc2100, but I dont know if I have pc2100 type RAM. So can anyone help me?

Any why isnt my sig showing?

 

[xXSMGXx]

well first of all you wont be able to run HL2 with Geforce mx420 thats for sure, ya and if your motherboard haz 333mhz it will support 2700RAM and if your motherboard is 266mhz then in will only support 2100 RAM

 

[Mackan]

why shouldnt he be able to play hl2 with a gf4mx?
you can play it with a geforce2 (or even worse), so a gf4 of any kind will do..

 

[xXSMGXx]

Originally posted by Mackan
why shouldnt he be able to play hl2 with a gf4mx?
you can play it with a geforce2 (or even worse), so a gf4 of any kind will do..

I will watch you try, lol
Well ok you will be able to launch the game, then run it on all LOW settings and you will get like 10Fps, whats the point huh ?

 

[KiNG]

i thought u were aloud to use any ram u wanted just as long as it fit. (if it fits it works-my philosphy) but it run in conjuction with the mobo and processor if they are all the same ghz. i need clearification by a pro comp person.(somone that as actually built a comp-perferably many)

 

[BrewHaHa]

Dont make me call comp USA, or best buy-im not a computer person...not l337

 

[EVIL]

yeah.. I think you are able to pop in any ram you want. (ofcourse you must use ddr ram if the mobo supports ddr etc.)

but the size doesnt realy matters. I have one 256 and a 512 @ the moment.

 

[Shockwave]

look up your mobo specs, see what it supports for DDR RAM..

If you have PC2100 now and your mobo supports PC2700 your far better off getting rid of the ram in your PC and getting the 2700.

Dont just go buying the cheapest RAM, and definetly dont go buying RAM from best buy or compusa cause they will rape you for the price.

You can get 512megs of PC2700 for $100(crucial or kingston low latency memory)

If you do have PC2100 RAM get a stick of 512 not another stick of 256.

 

[BrewHaHa]

-shockwave

og course my cpu supports ddr ram, thats what i have in it now. But thanks, ill look up some info and see if it supports the pc2700. thanks!

 

[Mackan]

Originally posted by xXSMGXx
I will watch you try, lol
Well ok you will be able to launch the game, then run it on all LOW settings and you will get like 10Fps, whats the point huh ?

no he will probably get decent performance on medium settings with his rig..
hl2 isnt doom3 you know..

 

[BrewHaHa]

I can always upgrade...

 

[Shockwave]

Ya i didnt say that it didnt support DDR ...i said if it supports PC2700 and you have PC2100 in it, dont buy anymore PC2100, buy PC2700 and sell your old stick

 

[FireBall]

download sisoft sandra my friend, just do a google search u will find it in notime

their homepage is www.sisoftware.net btw

 

[Hammer]

Hey-

Don't just upgrade your RAM for the hell of it. Athlons are pretty much limited to using bandwidth as defined by their FSB, so Athlons on a 266 FSB aren't really going to use the improved bandwidth of 333 MHz memory. PC2100 will give an Athlon on a 266 MHz FSB the 2.1 GB/s memory bandwidth it can use. If you feel the need to upgrade your RAM, lower latency memory would benefit you a lot more than higher speed memory.

Your money would be better spent on a faster video card.

 

[Ridic]

im getting 2 gigs of crucial pc2700 ddr ram in my new pc, is pc2700 good? i know about RAM and all, but i just dont know about pc***. i assume the higher u go in pc- the faster it is right? like 3200 is faster than 2700, and 3500 is faster than 3200 etc etc.

 

[Ridic]

its going in an athlon xp 2400+ abit kD7 motherboard.

 

[Hammer]

Yes, Ridic - that's right: PC3200 is clocked faster than PC2700.

How to pick your RAM depends a lot on your system and your requirements.

I'm going to assume you're going to run that Athlon XP 2400+ at stock speed, but want to be able to tweak everything you can out of it in BIOS.

What I would suggest is buying PC2700, but buy low latency memory - CL2. It will probably cost the same as stock PC3200, but because of the Athlon XP 2400+ only demands 2.1GB/s of memory bandwidth, you'd really see diminshing returns, if any at all, from buying PC3200 or higher. Low latency PC2700 is pretty cheap right now, and will permit you an upgrade to Barton / T-Bred 333 MHz FSB chips - so it's not a dead investment. I really think, in this situation, CL2 PC2700 will serve you best.

Two conditions:

1) If you want to overclock, then you're going to have to be a bit more aggressive in the components that you buy. Nothing sucks worse when you're trying to overclock a nice rig than to discover your network card is holding you back... basically, buy the best you can afford.

2) If you are realistically looking at upgrading to a 400MHz FSB Athlon, then buy, at a minimum, PC3200 memory. For me, I recently bought PC2700 with Thermaltake cooling kits and good timings - because my next upgrade will be to a Barton (333 MHz). After that, I'll be looking hard at the Opteron / Athlon64 platform, which will likely have different memory requirements again. Athlons with a 400MHz FSB seem like a dead-end road to me - why buy into the top-of-the-line of a dying platform?

----------------------------

Lastly, you have to consider that your mainboard may not actually perform better with 400 MHz memory. PC3200 is notoriously high latency, and some memory implementations really suffer with it. Several mainboard manufacturers have released BIOS updates to sort this out, and Abit is well-known for attention to this kind of detail. I'd recommend searching for tests of your board online with the two kinds of memory (DDR 333 and "DDR 400"). See this link to illustrate my point: while the Gigabyte board improves in performance with 400MHz memory, several of the others - most notably Soyo - lose a lot in going to the higher latency 400 MHz RAM.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1721&p=8

It is worth pointing out that, with the exception of the Gigabyte and Soyo results, most of the benchmark results in that particular set of tests are so close that they probably fall in the margin of error.

 

[synth]

you can find a lot of good stuff here if you need to upgrade...
www.pricewatch.com

 

[PainLord]

Originally posted by [Hunter]Ridic
im getting 2 gigs of crucial pc2700 ddr ram in my new pc, is pc2700 good? i know about RAM and all, but i just dont know about pc***. i assume the higher u go in pc- the faster it is right? like 3200 is faster than 2700, and 3500 is faster than 3200 etc etc.

Yup, the higher the numbers the fsater they are. PC2700 is absolutley fine.

 

[Shockwave]

UM ya...but if his motherboard only is capable of pc2100 and he throws pc2700 in there..then there is a good chance he will fry is mobo ...

Brewhaha how many forums you gonna ask this question in?..it was answered at the dod forums

 

[Shockwave]

crucial XMS series is the RAM you want..it pretty much the best ram out there..

DO NOT BUY RAM OFF PRICEWATCH! NEWEGG ONLY FOR RAM!

 

[Ridic]

Originally posted by Shockwave
UM ya...but if his motherboard only is capable of pc2100 and he throws pc2700 in there..then there is a good chance he will fry is mobo ...

Brewhaha how many forums you gonna ask this question in?..it was answered at the dod forums

lol, i know what my motherboard supports.....ill stick with 2700

 

[Hammer]

If a motherboard only supports PC2100 and you install PC3500 on it, the memory will just run at the lower speed.

 

[worldspawn]

i'd upgrade my graphics card too if i were you.. the mx series are as slow as geforce 2's.. which will leave a lot to be desired in hl2.

 

[Mr. Redundant]

I agree, I recently did a pc overhaul, upgraded my cpu, my mobo, my ram and my vid card. and you know what gave me the biggest performance boost?
my vid card by far, I coulda stuck with my old stuff sans the card, and would run just fine.

but let me ask you this, what are you upgrading for? do you just have the cash, and you wanna blow it on your pc (was my case) or is there something running slow you want to upgrade for?

if its hl2 your upgrading for, dont be a fool like me rather wait till hl2 ships, that way whatever you buy will be cheaper. (now I knew this but I upgraded anyway, since it created another comp for my lil bro when I upgraded my own (from spare parts))
anywhoo my radeon 9800pro 128mb cost me ~$450
but I bet theres gonna be better stuff out by hl2's release, also the stuff out now will be cheaper.

just hold onto your cash is my advice
but when its time to upgrade my recommendation is a decent vid card.

 

[EVIL]

ehh.. mr hunter thingy why do you need 2 gigs of memory. only video editing and gfx doods use up that amount of memmory. no single game can ever use the 2 gb of memmory. your pc wont run faster if you have 2 gig. it would be better to have a 1 gig in pc3500 then 2 gig in pc2700