minor upgrade question

Post by **prince1000** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:35 pm

my current system:

Xp2400
Gigabyte GA 7VRXP rev 2 (KT333)
ATI 9600XT
1280MB PC2100 DDR (one kingston value stick and two lesser brand sticks)

supposedly, with this motherboard i can run my ram at 333 (166) though the stock bus is 266. this is what i was told when i bought it and what was said on reviews i read of the board. i've never bothered to upgrade any system memory in terms of speed but now since i will eventually, within the next 6-9 months, be upgrading my computer i was wondering if it would improve this system at all if i were to go ahead and get ram that would also be used in my new upgraded system.

this is what i'm looking at:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=80092-08

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145450

either in 1GB or 2GB. i'm assuming that i could just set my ram clock to 333 in BIOS (there is an option to do so) and it would clock it down to that speed though it is pc3200. this will not damage anything correct?

like i said, my cpu/mobo are a major bottleneck right now. can i squeeze any more out of this with a ram upgrade? and it's not like buying another agp vid card cause i can definately use the mem in the new system whereas i will be going pci-e vid card-wise.

what do you think, quake3world T&T....what do YOU think.

Post by **Tormentius** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:19 pm

The new RAM will most likely have better timings than your current RAM and I'm guessing there will be more of it. I'd say it would be a worthwhile upgrade, plus it eliminates one more thing that you'll need to pick up later. Btw, you don't need to manually downclock it because the system will do that for you.

Post by **prince1000** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:24 pm

i'm actually leaning towards just 1 GB, the pair in the newegg link above, for $99. i'm also thinking i will have to set the clock myself so it doesn't default to the system bus of 266.

here is my mobo:

http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr ... P(2.0).htm

edit: actually, the link from zipzoomfly:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... e=80092-08

shows it much cheaper than at newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145522

unless i'm missing something and that is not the same ram...

Post by **Tormentius** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:40 pm

IMO, it would be more worthwhile to go with 2GB since you're building a new system which will need to last awhile. Remember that Gears of War, UT2007, and Quake Wars are all on the horizon and those games will probably be quite memory-hungry.

Post by **Foo** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:43 pm

Yeah. At first I was hesitant to recommend 2Gb considering that the rest of your system isn't cutting edge, but honestly I think it's still a sound investment.

2 pairs of dual-channel 512Mb sticks would be supreme-win. If you can stretch to a single pair of 1Gb dual channel that would be superwin.

Post by **prince1000** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:50 pm

only 3 dimm slots and only 200/266 mem can be utilized in all 3 (so 2X 1GB 400/333).

but 2GB is probably the better investment. another question though, my mobo is not dual channel capable. will that matter if i were to get a dual channel kit or does that only mean i can't take full advantage of it's dual channel capabilities?

Post by **Tormentius** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:10 pm

prince1000 wrote:only 3 dimm slots and only 200/266 mem can be utilized in all 3 (so 2X 1GB 400/333).

but 2GB is probably the better investment. another question though, my mobo is not dual channel capable. will that matter if i were to get a dual channel kit or does that only mean i can't take full advantage of it's dual channel capabilities?

Dual-channel kits are a bit misleading. All that it means is that the RAM modules come from the same product batch and have been tested to work together. A motherboard has to have dual-channel as a feature for it to work that way, otherwise its just viewed as two sticks of RAM by the system and they will be run off of one memory controller (rather than two).

Post by **prince1000** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:40 pm

is $198 (free shipping) decent for 2GB or should i wait til it's even cheaper?

ive given myself to 5pm to decide whether i will buy it today.

edit: fuck it, i bought it. better be an improvement. :////

Post by **prince1000** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:08 pm

damn, timedemo up from 265 to 291.5 w/ram clocked at 333 cas 2 and only 1GB vs 1.28GB previously. sucks having another gig sitting in drawer unused for a bit...

Post by **Tormentius** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:21 pm

prince1000 wrote:... another gig sitting in drawer unused for a bit...

Why isn't it being used?

Post by **prince1000** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:59 pm

4 512mb sticks, only 3 dimm slots and my board will only run @ 200/266 w/3 sticks.

i went with foo's advice, also the pair of 512mb sticks were on sale that day so i saved almost $40 over buying the 1gb pair

Post by **SOAPboy** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:23 pm

Tormentius wrote:IMO, it would be more worthwhile to go with 2GB since you're building a new system which will need to last awhile. Remember that Gears of War, UT2007, and Quake Wars are all on the horizon and those games will probably be quite memory-hungry.

Agreed