Adding memory

Y

yoavby

Geek Trainee
Hi Folks,

I have 1536MB RAM installed (board is Gigabyte GA-945GMF-S2) using 512MB chips, 2 x PC2-6400 plus 1 x PC2-4300 (according to CPU-Z). As far as I can understand, the PC2-4300 is slower then the other two, only I don't know how much this effects performeces. I plan to upgrade to 2GB and my question is: Should I take out the slow memory and buy two faster sticks, or can I just buy another stick (whatever bandwidth) and drop it in?

TIA
 
it depends what you do with your computer. Gaming = lower CAS latencies and faster RAM clock speeds. Basic use, you are unlikely to notice any performance gain from doing so.
 
rimmer said:
it depends what you do with your computer. Gaming = lower CAS latencies and faster RAM clock speeds. Basic use, you are unlikely to notice any performance gain from doing so.
Click to expand...

Hi rimmer,

Thank you for your answer.

This is a gaming machine, so I'll probably want faster memory. According to Gigabyte (GIGABYTE - Product - Motherboard - Overview - GA-945GMF-S2 (rev. 1.0)) the board supports 667MHz memory. Isn't this speed LOWER then the capabilities of the PC2-6400 chips I have now?

(Sorry about my newbee questions, all this hardware stuff is still a big mistery for me)

TIA
 
You need to know the max size memory you can go first, then use all the same brand and size..It also depends on how many slots you have...Mismatching
memory is never a good Idea...
 
Ghostman 1 said:
You need to know the max size memory you can go first, then use all the same brand and size..It also depends on how many slots you have...Mismatching
memory is never a good Idea...
Click to expand...

Hi Ghostman,

This board supports up to 4GB. I don't want to go all the way right now, but I need 2GB ASAP. What I would like to know is which memory sticks to buy for highest performences at the lowest price.

TIA
 
I don't care so much for the brand, it's the speed and size that matter.
Click to expand...

I thought you wanted a good brand, By mismatching memory you will never get a true reading. also is the same for using garbage brands..
 
Ghostman 1 said:
I thought you wanted a good brand, By mismatching memory you will never get a true reading. also is the same for using garbage brands..
Click to expand...

I'll go for any brand in the board manufacturer compatibility list, but I'm still not sure what is the optimal memory speed in my case.
 
Hi,

You would want to buy PC2-5300 ram according to the sticky in this forum :


5.3GB/s=PC2-5300=DDR2-667 (may also show up as PC2-5400)

I believe if you have RAM rated for different speeds, all of your RAM (if they are capable) are going to run at the slower speed so you really want to buy all of the same stuff. :)
 
Wildcard said:
Hi,

You would want to buy PC2-5300 ram according to the sticky in this forum :


5.3GB/s=PC2-5300=DDR2-667 (may also show up as PC2-5400)

I believe if you have RAM rated for different speeds, all of your RAM (if they are capable) are going to run at the slower speed so you really want to buy all of the same stuff. :)
Click to expand...

Thank You Wildcard,

One more question: Is it possible/recommended to mix different size sticks? Suppose I want to upgrade to 3GB, can I use 2 x 512MB plus 2 x 1024MB?

TIA
 
Hi,

Yes, you should be able to mix the sizes. Right now I am using 2 1GB sticks and 2 512MB sticks in my computer. The only downside is using different sizes will not allow you to run them in dual channel mode, which is supposed to give the RAM extra performance - i think I read about 10% increase... but having 2 GB of RAM in dual channel is not as good as having 3GB not in dual channel mode, at least not in my opinion :)
 
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