Upgrading RAM

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by machoo

My motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45 or something. It can go upto 16GB , Win 7 64bit O/S and I have 2 of my 4 slots remaining. So with COD only 32bit , will it even work for me?

You mean 32 vs 64 bit? Yes, it will work in compatibility mode, nothing to worry about there.

[Les]

Originally Posted by machoo

My motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45 or something. It can go upto 16GB , Win 7 64bit O/S and I have 2 of my 4 slots remaining. So with COD only 32bit , will it even work for me?

The reason I was asking whether your operating system was 32 or 64-bit was because if it were 32-bit, your system would be limited to using about 4GB of RAM anyway. So, as that's not an issue, the question is how much to get?

At the moment, having 6-8GB total is generally considered to be enough. Unless you're using video or sound or photo-editing programs and manipulating a large amount of really big files in real-time, or perhaps trying to run a lot of memory-intensive programs at the same time for some reason, it's highly unlikely you'll need more than 6-8GB.

What that means is, with 4GB already (which must be 2x2GB), you only really need 2-4GB more, if that. And seeing as DDR2 is dual-channel RAM, which works best in multiples of two, you'd be better off getting an extra 2x2GB for a total of 8GB than just getting another 2GB for a total of 6GB. If you only add one more stick of RAM, of any size, you'll be using three slots and it will all run in single-channel mode, not the dual-channel mode it was designed for. In real terms, according to my own testing, that probably wouldn't matter, but why risk it?

So, what does it add up to? IMO, get a matched pair of 2GB sticks like the ones you've already got (assuming they are a matched pair that came in a kit together, not just random separate 2GB sticks.) Try to match the brands, but it's probably not that important. And as you already know, if you can't match the speeds the faster ones will drop down to the slower one's speed, so try to match the speeds too.

It also might be a good idea to check which slots each pair goes into. (Your motherboard's manual should have that info in it.) It might not always be the case, but from my experience, each pair, especially if they're different, has to go into alternating slots, not side-by side, in order to work in dual-channel mode.

Hope that helps. But really, unless you're already experiencing problems due to a lack of RAM, I'd hold off on it altogether until you really do need it (or until you decide you just want it anyway.)

[Oldschool61]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

DDR3 is much better than DDR2 but i have forgot all the differences.

But it should make your PC and therefore the game run a bit faster.

Hopefully someone else on the forum can shine more light on the difference or

TROLL MODE ON

use this rather useful unknown website www.google.com

TROLL MODE OFF

sorry had to do it

No its actually not much of an improvement in performance. Unless your PC is outdated and your going with a new mobo stay with your DDR2.

[Oldschool61]

Originally Posted by machoo

My motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45 or something. It can go upto 16GB , Win 7 64bit O/S and I have 2 of my 4 slots remaining. So with COD only 32bit , will it even work for me?

save your money for now, unless you find a good deal on DDR2 dont waste your money. 4GB is plenty for now

[Heliocon]

Originally Posted by Oldschool61

No its actually not much of an improvement in performance. Unless your PC is outdated and your going with a new mobo stay with your DDR2.

Yep, although I think they underrate the differance. Mainly because the differance is interms of bandwidth/speed for data transfer, but if you have ddr3 you probably are on a 64bit os and have more than 4gb of ram anyway (6-8 is the sweet spot atm). Now the majority of games out are multiplatform or dont take good advantage of PC memory resulting in lower res textures etc. Overall it means that many apps dont push ram to a point where you can see the differance in speed or are bottlenecked by other hardware.

-Basically just saying I think we will see a larger performance gap moving on as hardware evens out. But atm unless you are buying a new machine, stick with your currend ddr2 stick type (add more).

[Voyager]

The main difference between DDR2 and DDR3 is that DDR3 can read out 2^3 times per reference clock, while DDR2 can only read out 2^2 times, the caveat being that it takes twice as many Ram cycles to respond to a request, as would a similar reference clocked DDR2 module. It can be faster, but only under specific conditions.

All of the DDR rams use the same raw ram chips as the original SDRAM, with the difference being in how many times per cycle the output interface can unload data, so, as long as you are accessing different parts of the RAM are being accessed, and the system knows enough in advance what it needs to access, you can get a major speed boost. On the other hand, if you're trying to access the same data over and over again, you don't get and benefit at all.

Think of it like commanding a rocket artillery group. All of the rocket launchers can fire off all of their rockets at once, and then they take a while to reload. That's the way the ram chips operate.

Now imagine that you have one phone, so you can only call one launcher at a time. How fast your group can shell things is going to be limited by how fast you can pick up the phone, relay the order, and they can respond to it. That's like the original SDRAM interface, which can only pull one bit per pin per reference clock cycle.

Now imagine you have eight phone operators. This means you can call eight batteries at once, and all of them can fire at the same time. As long as you have more than a few launchers, this will really increase you effective rate of fire, even though your launchers still respond, and still fire at the same rate, simply because you can keep more of them tasked. But, if you call the same eight launchers every time, you're going to be limited by how fast they can respond, reload, and all that. That is what DDR3 is like.

Harry Voyager