RAM Questions...

[K_Freddie]

Originally Posted by Razer

S! Ya'll....
Its difficult to find the same type of RAM, being 5-5-5-15 (or what ever it is)

This little number sequence is probably the number of 'clock cycles' for each phase of accesssing ram. Essentially the lower the numbers the faster the ram.
That '15' at the end is a bit worrying - It's the ram recovery time.


Forgot to add: some bios's allow you to play with these timing parameters... But you have to know what you're doing of course.
The worst you can do is crash the system at startup, so you can reset and change these parameters until it works.

[WhiteSnake]

If you got a Windows XP or Vista 32bit version than i advice you to use 2x 1024mb DDR2-800 in Dual Channel, the closer they are matched, the better so best would be to buy a set.
2Gb Dual Channel gives you much more performance than 3Gb Single Channel.
You enable dual channel by sticking the ram modules in slot 1 & 3 or 2 & 4.

If you got a Windows XP Media Center Editionb 2005 32bit (4Gb max), XP 64bit or Vista 64bit you can stick 4x 1024mb DDR2-800 in your Mobo, than 1 & 3 and 2 & 4 will go into Dual Channel mode.

There are also 2Gb DDR2-800 modules that are not to expensive, so for a 64bit OS you could stick 4x 2048 in your Mobo.

Paired modules in Dual Channel are faster than double the amount in Single Channel.

[bomath]

Originally Posted by WhiteSnake

[...]
Paired modules in Dual Channel are faster than double the amount in Single Channel.

That's a gross exageration. The theoretical benchmarks show at most 40% improvement (or even less for Core2Duo, because of its higly effective cache). What's really relevant is that (with a top-end machine!) you'd see at most 5-10% improvement in Sturmovik FPS coming from dual-channel; to believe it, just try your memory sticks on non-channel paired slots (like 1&2, if you use 1&3 for dual-channel).
Anything under 2GB is sub-par, and 4GB RAM is becoming the de-facto standard for gaming rigs. If only Vista-x64 SP1 would behave more nicely...

[Razer]

Thanks for the responses... but I'm still confused...

Well I've managed to find ram sticks the same speed as my current 512mb sticks, and I'd like to know:

Can I run these two 512mb sticks, as well as, the two 1gb sticks as well, bringing the total to 3gb total...?

The speed of the sticks are all the same, but is just different sizes... that wont be a problem?

[Roy]

I won't be a problem to get 3gb detected. Now if you want it to work in dual channel mode I'm not sure if it would, if I'm not mistaken all your motherboard's manual mentions is to put same size sticks in their corresponding colored slots

[WhiteSnake]

If you got 4 slots you should be able to pair the modules, your manual should tell you wich slots to use.
so pair 2x1024 and 2x 512, aslong as there matched you should be ok.

If your running a 32bit OS there is no point in using more than 2Gb for a game because the OS can only asign 2Gb Max...

[robtek]

@whitesnake

"If your running a 32bit OS there is no point in using more than 2Gb for a game because the OS can only asign 2Gb Max..."

that is not correct, a 32bit OS can address 4 gB of Ram but because of needed Address translations it can effectively only use 3.5 gB of the 4 gB for programs.