Is DDR2 THAT much better than DDR400?

[CyberPitz]

I have an X2 3800+ right now, and I was just curious, since RAM is uber cheap right now, and it would be really easy to get 4 gigs of memory for dirt cheap, would it be worth it to get a 2.13 *I think it's speed was* ghz Core2Duo? Would the processor be slower for my games and such, and would that DDR2 ram be that much faster? I think the motherboard I was looking at said the standard was DDR2 667...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813121046
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115004

 

[Kyorisu]

Clock for clock Core duos are faster. ie even though it's 2.13ghz it'll whoop your 3800. Besides with some decent ram and a decent mobo (afaik Intel branded mobos are either Asus or Foxconn anyway) you can get that baby up to 3ghz easy on stock cooling.

Also on a 32bit OS you don't need more than 2gb as 2gb is all that can be addressed.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802&p=10

Notice how your 3800 is at the bottom? Meanwhile I'm sitting pretty at 3.6 my budget ram doesn't want to go any higher.

 

[Hazar]

2gb of memory is sufficient

and you can't use 4 anyways if you don't have a 64bit os

 

[Asus]

A core 2 duo would be a bit of an improvement. DDR2 memory not something to upgrade for. It has more bandwidth because it runs at higher speeds but you rarely hit max bandwidth. And when playing games it's mostly the GPU that is stressed. Would see FPS improvement but it would really depending on the game (most are GPU bound) and settings for how much of a difference.

If you did processing stuff like video/audio encoding, program compiling, compress/decompressing files (winzip) a lot then you would get the most out of a faster CPU.

 

[The Brick]

I'd say go for 4gb. It's retardedly cheap nowadays. Well actually I'm talking to air because I've talked to him about this on msn. Conclusion:

If he'd be buying today:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811129155
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131030R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115016
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820231122
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134


but actually he's buying in a few months, so:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

A better psu is to be considered then too.

 

[CyberPitz]

Yeah, I figure since my new roomie needs a new PC, I'll sell him mine *I'm keeping my x1800XT damnit...* and just buy this beast.

 

[Dekstar]

Kyo and Hazar, I have 4 gig in my computer, and Windows sees up to 3.2gb, and it's worth future-proofing with 4gb anyway if it's really cheap.

 

[Hazar]

arrgh, I just had this discussion

why are you buying the quadcore when you can get a chip for almost half as much that has only slightly lower performance.

amd 6000 x2:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773
$223

Q6600:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
$485

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=695&model2=694&chart=170

in the fear benchmark, you get a whopping 8 fps more.
in multitasking (ps + winrar) you save 40 seconds. this is probably the most extreme case
in serious sam 2, you go from 95 to 106 fps

my point is that the amd chips are a better value if you're not loaded with cash and want to get something that's on the higher end of things.

to dekstar, the reason you're not seeing the additional 800 mb of memory is because of the 32 vs 64 bit issue. A 32 bit integer is not large enough to store all the memory addresses in 4 gb of memory.

I don't really consider $200 for ram to be cheap, especially when you don't get much if any added performance for your money. I'd wait till you actually need that much since it will inevitably be much cheaper for much better stuff then.

 

[The Brick]

arrgh, I just had this discussion

why are you buying the quadcore when you can get a chip for almost half as much that has only slightly lower performance.

because in a month it's $266. And it overclocks really well on p35 boards (3.6ghz baby, eat that amd!).

Oh and because it's quad core instead of dual?


And ram IS really cheap these days. I bought THESE for $380 6 months ago. Bah.

 

[Kyorisu]

Kyo and Hazar, I have 4 gig in my computer, and Windows sees up to 3.2gb, and it's worth future-proofing with 4gb anyway if it's really cheap.

Theres cheap ram and then theres your quality low timing ram, one solution certainly isn't cheap especially when talking 4gb.

 

[The Brick]

Actually, even the high quality ram is decently priced. Mushkin has this awesome ram with an awesome price.

 

[Dekstar]

to dekstar, the reason you're not seeing the additional 800 mb of memory is because of the 32 vs 64 bit issue. A 32 bit integer is not large enough to store all the memory addresses in 4 gb of memory.

I know, but I was pointing out that you don't only see half of 4gb, you actually see about 3/4's.
And my RAM was by no means low-timings, but it was cheap.

 

[Kyorisu]

Any of the 32bit varieties of windows map device i/o into physical memory starting at the 4GB limit heading back down. On a 64bit O/S where it can address more physical memory, they stick that section much further up the address space. The end result is that on a 32-bit windows os, some of your RAM is inaccessible because windows is using those addresses for other things.

http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605/en-us