RAM Upgrade

[peanut]

Hello, I currently have 1Gb of RAM. It is DDR 400. I would like to upgrade to 2 gig but I can not put another gig of DDR 400 in with the one I have because the board will not handle that configuration. I would need to drop everything down to DDR 333 in order to be able to get 2 gig. My question is, would it be worth the drop in speed to aquire double the RAM or would it kind of be the same as what I had? Thank You

[zinnie]

Hi peanut.....I do not understand why you cannot install 2GB of DDR 400 if you can install 2GB of DDR 333.
If you have the slots there it will work. If you think the problem is speed then the DDR 400 will just operate at a slower speed. Of course I may be wrong....but I am 'pretty sure 'that's right

[rojash]

Go here:

http://www.crucial.com/

do a scan, and it will advise you your best course of action

[peanut]

My owners manual tells me that I cannot have more than one double sided DDR400 RAM. As far as I know there is no such thing as a single sided 1 Gb RAM. I can use two double sided 333 but they need to go in dimm 2 and 3 leaving dimm 1 empty. If you want to see what I mean, it's an Asus K8n. Not K8n-e. Thank you.

[zinnie]

Hi again peanut...sorry single sided and double sided baffles me ....I thought all DDR SDRAM was just 184 pin and if you plugged an 184 pin card into a 184 pin socket ..in worked.

[zinnie]

Me again peanut....since my last post I have 'put my brain into gear' clearly yo get the capacity of 1GB they have to mount chips on both sides of the card. .A PC400 running faster will consume more power and generate more heat, so I can see why they only one.
Coming back to your original question...\\\\\\\\\\i guess if you are thinking of going to 2GB it's because you want to hold more or larger programs in memory. I would have thought that the larger memory would be faster than a smaller memory that has to 'page to the disc'

[bongoboy]

400mhz x 1 gb = 400mhz
333mhz x 2gb = 666mhz
So you would see an increase in speed of 60%

[peanut]

Thanks everyone

[ACtheTROLL]

bong
nice maths ....????????????????????
f-

ddr = double data rate
thus 1x400 achieves 800 in real terms
333 achieves 666 (actually just less ...
2x333 also achieves 666

HOWEVER
more ram = less disc access ....= faster machine
faster ram = less bottleneck = faster machine

HOWEVER
it's all relative .... swings and roundabouts

video editing will be faster
just running progs won't

and the net gain will be in the order of millisaconds (so you won't see it anyhow"")

but why not 1 2Gb stick?

put the money into the new pc fund for next time

[peanut]

If I got one 2Gb stick of DDR 400, would I see a noticable difference or is it not enough benefit to justify spending the money ?

[ACtheTROLL]

what processor?
what do you do with the machine

Video or photo editing .... probably a fair increase
gaming ... reasonable ... but I'm guessing you are using a P4? ... so your days are numbered.

this is a total oversimplification
memory is like a HDD ... when you open a prog ... everything is shifted up into memory (if it's available)

if not enough ... you are constantly refilling memory with new info ... and the old is saved onto virtual memory on the hdd .... all this takes time ...

so the bigger the bucket ... the less trips to the tap.
however ... if you only need half a bucket ... the rest is just wasted.

also ... the more memory you have ... windows matches it with virtual memory x1.5 -2
so with 1Gb ... your pagefile will be up to 2Gb ... so there is an extra cost .... if you are increasing memory because the PC is struggling ... it will actually struggle more

[peanut]

Actually its a AMD Athlon x64 processor. Little GTA 3 gaming. The PC is not struggling, I just want to speed it up a touch.

[ACtheTROLL]

peanut

When I was a lad ... My first real job as a programmer came with one of the newly released 486 machines with 32 Mb of ram ... the machine cost �1800 ..... the ram was �1900 ..... in those days you couldn't get enough ram

these days .... it's the number of processors
a ram upgrade probably won't even be noticeable .... unless you intend to edit movies or huge pictures (pure raw format or intend to do serious gaming(online)

1 Gb is fitted as standard and with such a machine a ram upgrade is a debateable "improvement"
to jump from 128 - 256 is a huge increase .... but unless you are an extreme power user ... you won't use the full 1 GB .... let alone get near to the second Gb

It's not a hugely expensive experiment .... so if you feel inclined go ahead ... ... but you could use the money to feed piggy .... and start your "next" machine fund.
save for that quad quad core beastie that will come next year