DDR2 Ram question. 4x1gb or 2x2gb?

Computer Forum CPU, Motherboards and Memory
1

Hi there.

im building a new pc :smiley:

i have bought the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 :slight_smile: and all the other peices :P..

My motherboard supports 8GiGs of DDR2 800mhz Ram. has 4 ram slots.

My questions is this :

To get the best performance out of the ram i am going to perchus which would be the bets combination?

To Buy 2 sets of 2gb ddr2 ram 5-5-5-7 = 4gigs
OR
To Buy 4 sets of 1gb ddr2 ram 5-5-5-7 = 4gigs.

Logicly oyu would say 2sets of 2gigs so i can upgrade latter to the full 8gigs BUT to get the best performance 4 ram sticks or 2 ram sticks?

What about when overclocking, i would have to have 4 sticks of the same amount of GB and the same make (basicle the same sticks) ??

Which would be best to buy?
ANSWER WOULD BE VERY APRETIATED :smiley: and thanks in advanced :slight_smile:

Please answere soon because i have both of these offers on ebay and ending in about 2hours :S

THANKS AGAIN :smiley: :cool: in advanced..

2

yeah, your right, go with the 2 set of 2Gb to keep upgradablity

performance or RAM is more to do with the quality of the RAM, the amount per stick is not an issue, go with 2 sticks of 2Gb

3

If you’re interested in overclocking, then you’re better off with 2x 2GB. Traditionally, addressing that many banks uses a trade off by using a slower command rate (1T vs 2T) and/or slower memory timings. And of course, there’s the limited amount of expansion.

Ideally, you’ll want the same RAM across the board, but it’s not required for overclocking. However, given the dual channel memory feature on many motherbords these days, it’s pretty much required to have the same RAM in both channels.

Realistically, you’re probably not going to notice the difference, but given that the price is pretty much the same, the lower timings are a plus.

Secondly, what OS are you going to run? Windows XP isn’t going to make full use of 4GB, and for most people you’re going to run into dimishing returns after 2GB at this point in time. Even for a gaming system, you’re just not likely to see much, if anything at all, going past 2GB.

4

linux uses all ram before if writes to the page file right? if thats ture will lunix use all 4gb first becuase it it will then for many games you will not even use the page file

5

I only really used linux when I had 512mb of ram and not once (even when compiling software) did I touch the page file.

Memory managment is so much better with linux.