Ram Question

[cjsavvy]

Question is do i go for 1 gig of PC3200 Crucial RAM, or do i go for 512megs of PC4200 Kingston RAM, with the possiblity of getting another 512 in a couple of months?

[Lamsey]

Go for the type of RAM that matches the Front Side Bus of your CPU.

[cjsavvy]

Its for an Abit NF7-S mobo and a 3200+ XP Athlon. I havent actually bought the pc yet - going to in a few weeks. What would be the best type of RAM to buy?

[Lamsey]

If you're buying a 3200+ Barton Athlon XP, I believe the FSB speed is 400MHz. Therefore, the most suitable type of RAM is PC3200, which effectively runs at 400MHz (200MHz x2).

Make sure you get two sticks, so that you can use dual-channel RAM capabilities.

[Livy]

since you have the cash for a 3200 athlon, why not splash out on the ram aswell.

corsair are meant to do high quality stuff

[ss87monte]

Don't go with a 3200. Get a 3000 and save yourself the money by overclocking it to a 3200+ or faster. The only real difference will be 333Mhz FSB as to the 400Mhz FSB.

[cjsavvy]

So i should buy as much PC 3200 as i can afford then? Is Crucial RAM any good?

[Lamsey]

Originally posted by ss87monte@13 November 2003 - 23:59
Don't go with a 3200. Get a 3000 and save yourself the money by overclocking it to a 3200+ or faster. The only real difference will be 333Mhz FSB as to the 400Mhz FSB.
Crucial RAM is very reliable, yes. Kingston and Corsair are other brands of high-quality RAM - these are also very good for overclocking.

With regards to the 3000+, I believe you can now get 3000+ chips with a 400MHz FSB - that might save you quite a bit of money and you wouldn't notice the difference in performance at all :)

[cjsavvy]

Just found a 3000+ with a FSB of 400Mhz for 160 pounds - thats a saving of nearly 100!! Thanks guys!! Is there no point going higher than PC3200??

[Lamsey]

Originally posted by cjsavvy@14 November 2003 - 00:14
Just found a 3000+ with a FSB of 400Mhz for 160 pounds - thats a saving of nearly 100!! Thanks guys!! Is there no point going higher than PC3200??
Not really - it's more efficient to have the FSB speeds and RAM speeds match. You wouldn't get much of a performance boost out of getting ultra-fast RAM.

[cjsavvy]

What sort of system would get a boost from using ultra fast DDR RAM then?

[lynx]

Cpu chips aren't particularly affected by FSB speeds (within reason), it is the overall frequency which affects them. But ancilliary subsystems (AGP, PCI, memory etc) which are working at FSB derived speeds are directly affected.

With sime systems it is possible to clock these subsystems spearatly, but as Lamsey says, it is advisable to keep FSB and memory clock speeds equal to ensure synchronisation and therefore maximum throughput. But overclocking could exceed the capabilities of memory which is already at its designated maximum speed and therefore cause instability. In this case, it is possible that you could have more success in overclocking a system which had faster memory. This is particularly true as you approach the 'cutting edge' of memory/system speeds.

Edit: clarity

[Cygnuz-Y]

Make sure you get two sticks, so that you can use dual-channel RAM capabilities.


Whats that??? I mean Dual-channel Ram???

[lynx]

Originally posted by Cygnuz-Y@14 November 2003 - 01:29

Make sure you get two sticks, so that you can use dual-channel RAM capabilities.


Whats that??? I mean Dual-channel Ram???
Dual channel ram is an idea which allows memory transfers to/from one bank while the other bank is being prepared for the next transfer. Effectively it cuts out the set-up latency and therefore speeds up memory transfers.

[_John_Lennon_]

Originally posted by Lamsey+13 November 2003 - 19:22--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Lamsey @ 13 November 2003 - 19:22)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-cjsavvy@14 November 2003 - 00:14
Just found a 3000+ with a FSB of 400Mhz for 160 pounds - thats a saving of nearly 100&#33;&#33; Thanks guys&#33;&#33; Is there no point going higher than PC3200??
Not really - it&#39;s more efficient to have the FSB speeds and RAM speeds match. You wouldn&#39;t get much of a performance boost out of getting ultra-fast RAM. [/b][/quote]
Woah woah woah there lamsey, your frogetting overclocking. :D


But yeah, if you get 4200 DDR-Ram, That will give you plenty of room to up the FSB past the 400Mhz that its set at. Of course, I would 4200 Seems a bit extreme for AMD chips, perhaps some nice 3700 Is all you need, seeing as how you wouldnt be able to take full advantage of the 4200 Ram.

[peat moss]

Im sorry with out sounding rude do you have more money than brains? How much ram do uou think you need? 512MB
is fine I,d worry more about my video & sound. Are you runnind CAD.?

[_John_Lennon_]

If he is doing Video editing, 512 is the minimum.

[peat moss]

Oh good point then bye a Mac

[Cotton]

Originally posted by Lamsey@13 November 2003 - 23:54
If you&#39;re buying a 3200+ Barton Athlon XP, I believe the FSB speed is 400MHz. Therefore, the most suitable type of RAM is PC3200, which effectively runs at 400MHz (200MHz x2).

Make sure you get two sticks, so that you can use dual-channel RAM capabilities.
Whats the best ram for me if i have 800mhz FBS

[Lamsey]

Originally posted by Cotton+14 November 2003 - 07:42--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cotton @ 14 November 2003 - 07:42)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Lamsey@13 November 2003 - 23:54
If you&#39;re buying a 3200+ Barton Athlon XP, I believe the FSB speed is 400MHz. Therefore, the most suitable type of RAM is PC3200, which effectively runs at 400MHz (200MHz x2).

Make sure you get two sticks, so that you can use dual-channel RAM capabilities.
Whats the best ram for me if i have 800mhz FBS [/b][/quote]
400 MHz RAM, because it interfaces with your FSB at a ratio of 0.5 : 1

In actual fact, the 800MHz P4 FSB is simple a QDR (Quadruple Data Rate) bus running at an actual clock speed of 200MHz. Combined with DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM running at 200MHz (effective speed 400MHz, or PC3200), they match up well.

[bigdawgfoxx]

sooo its better to have the speed of your FSB and your RAM match? Or would the faster the ram the better?

[lynx]

It&#39;s best to run your ram base frequency at the same as your FSB base frequency. In Lamsey&#39;s example above, that would be 200MHz giving a ram speed of 400MHz and an FSB speed of 800MHz.

But if you are going to overclock, it would be better to get memory which is capable of higher speeds, simply because it is harder to control instability and temperatures in memory than on the cpu.

If you overclock a 200MHz based system by 25%, you need memory capable of providing PC4000 performance, in order to match the memory and FSB frequencies.
But memory with that sort of performance will not give you any benefit if you aren&#39;t overclocking.

[cjsavvy]

Ive decided on getting some nice PC3700 DDR RAM but how much?? 512 Megs or 1 Gig??? My machine is mainly going to be for gaming, watching movies and surfing the net

[bigdawgfoxx]

Depends on how much money you got i guess. I think 512MB is plenty&#33;