Question DDR2 or DDR3?

[yiitia]

I have two choices. A motherboard which supports up to 16GB DDR2, and a motherboard that supports up to 8GB DDR3. Which one should I choose?
I can't buy any other mb right now so I would appreciate if you guys don't suggest me another mb.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

you need to include the rest of your system specs in detail, what your plans for this system are(work, browsing, gaming, media production, etc), and where you are located.

I have two choices. A motherboard which supports up to 16GB DDR2, and a motherboard that supports up to 8GB DDR3. Which one should I choose?

i would suggest neither.
any DDR2 system is considered ancient tech these days.
and any DDR3 system limited to 8GB of RAM is going to be severely limited in other aspects as well.

you need to describe your situation in more detail for any real suggestion in this matter.

 

[yiitia]

you need to include the rest of your system specs in detail, what your plans for this system are(work, browsing, gaming, media production, etc), and where you are located.

i would suggest neither.
any DDR2 system is considered ancient tech these days.
and any DDR3 system limited to 8GB of RAM is going to be severely limited in other aspects as well.

you need to describe your situation in more detail for any real suggestion in this matter.

I'll play light games like valorant and csgo. I have a GTX750.

 

[punkncat]

I am not familiar with a mobo that will only support 8GB of DDR3.

Also not familiar with a CPU that would socket into either/or of those.

Do you already have parts in hand aside from the GTX 750?

 

[yiitia]

I am not familiar with a mobo that will only support 8GB of DDR3.

Also not familiar with a CPU that would socket into either/or of those.

Do you already have parts in hand aside from the GTX 750?

I actually have a mobo (Biostar G41D3C) that supports 8GB DDR3 but i fried up a slot so I gotta buy a new mobo, however, I don't want to get any socket beside from LGA775 as I can't afford a new cpu. I got a Q9550

 

[punkncat]

Take a look around here:

Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9550


With that said, where are you located and what manner of budget do you have on hand?

 

[BFG-9000]

While X38, X48, P43, P45, G43, G45, Q43, and Q45 chipsets all officially support only 8GB of DDR3 or 16GB of DDR2, plenty of us have been using 16GB of DDR3 in them for 15 years now. In this case unsupported just means it was untested by Intel but it usually works fine.

I actually have a mobo (Biostar G41D3C) that supports 8GB DDR3

No you don't--G41 only officially supports 4GB of DDR3 or 8GB of DDR2. If you install more, then it's essentially like overclocking.

I should point out that 4GB is plenty for Valorant or especially Csgo. And there's no performance to be gained with dual-channel DDR3 on Core 2 unless you are using the IGP (which you aren't, because you have a GTX 750). If you are running the stock 1333FSB for the Q9550, that's 4x333MHz = 10.67GB/s, which is exactly the same bandwidth as a single channel of DDR3-1333. Doubling the bandwidth of only the memory gives you nothing because the bottleneck is the FSB. So in other words, you have lost no performance by losing one of the DIMM channels, only half the amount of RAM, so long as you overclock the memory bus to 1333 (yes, the document I linked to also shows that unlike all of the chipsets above which officially support DDR3-1333 and DDR2-1066, G41 only officially supports DDR3-1066 and DDR2-800. But overclocking up to the memory's rated speed usually works)

So if you are OK with 4GB then you don't need another motherboard.

 

[yiitia]

While X38, X48, P43, P45, G43, G45, Q43, and Q45 chipsets all officially support only 8GB of DDR3 or 16GB of DDR2, plenty of us have been using 16GB of DDR3 in them for 15 years now. In this case unsupported just means it was untested by Intel but it usually works fine.

No you don't--G41 only officially supports 4GB of DDR3 or 8GB of DDR2. If you install more, then it's essentially like overclocking.

I should point out that 4GB is plenty for Valorant or especially Csgo. And there's no performance to be gained with dual-channel DDR3 on Core 2 unless you are using the IGP (which you aren't, because you have a GTX 750). If you are running the stock 1333FSB for the Q9550, that's 4x333MHz = 10.67GB/s, which is exactly the same bandwidth as a single channel of DDR3-1333. Doubling the bandwidth of only the memory gives you nothing because the bottleneck is the FSB. So in other words, you have lost no performance by losing one of the DIMM channels, only half the amount of RAM, so long as you overclock the memory bus to 1333 (yes, the document I linked to also shows that unlike all of the chipsets above which officially support DDR3-1333 and DDR2-1066, G41 only officially supports DDR3-1066 and DDR2-800. But overclocking up to the memory's rated speed usually works)

So if you are OK with 4GB then you don't need another motherboard.

What do you mean by you "don't"? I used that mobo with 8GB DDR3 ram for months. Official documentary says that Biostar G41D3C supports up to 8GB DDR3 memory.

 

[BFG-9000]

To be absolutely clear, the company that designed and made the chipset of your motherboard did not test or certify it to run 8GB or at DDR3-1333 speeds. While the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer who assembled it into a board found in their testing that running it out-of-spec and overclocked worked just fine, so they supported it (presumably voiding any warranty from Intel). This kind of thing was pretty common--after all how many 775 boards have you seen that advertised 1600FSB capability on the box when only the top X38 and X48 chipsets actually supported that according to Intel?

With voltage adjustments, just about any chipset board clear back to P965 could easily be set to run 1600FSB, and even 975x from 2005 could do it with a massive and perhaps unsafe voltage increase. The exception is your G41 which cannot do that at any voltage, because Intel intentionally crippled it by removing the memory strap that would allow this, to foil the Taiwanese. After all Intel would prefer they spent a few dollars more to buy the more expensive G43 or G45 instead.

Chipsets are binned just like processors are, and for example any with memory controllers found to be unstable with 4 DIMMs could just be sold as less premium products only rated for 2. If there is enough demand for low-end products then many completely non-defective chips will be supplied, and some enterprising motherboard manufacturer could've tested them and made weird G41 boards with 4 DIMM slots. Fun fact--all P45 chipsets are actually G45 with the IGP fused off. Because demand for the P45 was so high, just about all of them had a perfectly functional IGP that couldn't be used (that is, there aren't very many that actually had it fused off because it was defective)

In manufacturing, it's all about yield. If you have many defective products that cannot pass spec, just make a lower-spec and lower-priced line to sell them off.

 

[.valkyrie.]

well with that spec , i would go with 8Gb DDR3 since 750 and lga 775 (i used it since last year) cant officially run anything beyond 8Gb required RAM .... i'm doing so because perhaps that motherboard have better options like USB3 and PCIE X16 V2

 

[.valkyrie.]

I actually have a mobo (Biostar G41D3C) that supports 8GB DDR3 but i fried up a slot so I gotta buy a new mobo, however, I don't want to get any socket beside from LGA775 as I can't afford a new cpu. I got a Q9550

and i forgot to mention in above post, i had same CPU but with 6Mb cach, q9500...
so basically that MoBo with 1333mhz ram and 750, can run games maby up to 2020-2021 .... last game i played with that Mobo was RE2 remake from 2019 and i'm not sure but i guess RE3 remake as well.... RAM was not an issue for me , because GPU and CPU was 100 all the time..... also i had 750ti.
anyway, this is my experience. you may need more ram depend in your usage. maby a lot of chrome TAB or something like that.

 

[logainofhades]

To be perfectly honest here, sinking any money into that system, would be a waste. You would be better served buying a 2nd gen, or better, office workstation, like a Dell optiplex, and putting said card in it. Still old hardware, but much better equipped to play those titles. You might also want to check out techyescity, on youtube. He is really good at finding insanely good deals, on old hardware.