512 SDRAM or 256 DDRRAM

[raptor455]

There is a big war between DDR and SDR because many peoples say that DDR dosn't justify the cost but heres a good question. Considering that I don't have tons of money, i calculated how much SDRAM i could get for the price of the 256 mb of DDR i originally wanted to buy. The answer was 393 mb. So, which one will give the best performance, 256 mb of DDRSDRAM or (I know it's impossible) 393mb of SDRAM 133

 

[Guest]

You would be looking at 384MB pc133 (256 + 128)

It all depends on what system you have, and what programs you intend to use. Will the machine simply be an internet/gaming system, or a workstation for video/image editing?

Please post more details so a concise suggestion can be offered.

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I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

 

[raptor455]

It will mostly be a gaming machine, but i'm considering that it could be interesting to make video editing but it would only be a hobby. I also want a smooth DVD playback

 

[Guest]

Then go for the 256MB ddr. The higher bandwidth will help in games and general system use. 256MB is plenty for general use.

The advantage of the larger amount of ram would be ease of editing large files because they would fit in system RAM. Since this is not your first priority, go for speed.

Make sure to get CAS 2 DDR ram to see the real advantage of DDR.

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I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

 

[Raystonn]

Current Athlon systems get a speed increase of less than 10% for using DDR, which costs twice as much. I'd recommend the SDRAM myself. The less you have to swap out to the virtual memory swap file, the better performance you will get.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[girish]

better to go with SDRAM than DDR.

<font color=blue>die-hard fans don't have heat-sinks!</font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

"Current Athlon systems get a speed increase of less than 10% for using DDR"
10% is 10%. I know I would be glad to get that kind of speed increase.

"costs twice as much"
Wrong. He said it cost 1.5 to 1 for DDR. Note that these may not reflect absolute cheapest internet prices, but rather a local source. Check out <A HREF="http://www.crucial.com" target="_new">Crucial</A> where DDR is equally priced to SDR memory.

"The less you have to swap out to the virtual memory swap file"
True, but with a home system, this should never happen with 256MB ram, under normal cercumstances.

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I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

 

[Guest]

DDR RAM's improvement over SDRAM is minisicule in practice, although on paper it sounds impressive. I'd go with the 512 MB.

It would be different if we were comparing hard drives, I'd recommend a 7200 rpm over a 5400 rpm, in which there is a substantial difference.

 

[Guest]

Actually, I wouldn't call a 10% improvement minuscule. Consider that it is not just the memory that does the job in most benchmarks. You change memory only, without updating the rest of your system, and you expect a two-fold increase in performance? No way! In fact, the performance increase is better than the relative cost of memory to the rest of your system.

Still, 512 MB of non-DDR memory is gonna be better than 256 MB of DDR. Simply because it is more memory! Your 300+ MB processes won't have to swap, for once. With an equal amount of memory, though, I would definitely go for DDR.

Leo