HELP PLEASE! 1066 RAM or 800 RAM?

Brockavich

Distinguished
Aug 2, 2008
36
0
18,530
Okay.

I have been building my beast of a PC for about a month or two now and I only need 2 more major components: The case, and RAM. I already know which case I want. But I cannot decide on RAM.

I was originally thinking of 1066 RAM (yes my mobo supports it), but one of the geeks at the store whom I talk to said that:
a) XP cannot support 1066RAM fully
b) If you don't tune your PSU correctly, it would fry your RAM, PSU, and mobo.

Scared by this, I decided to switch to the 800 RAM.
However, one of my other friends told me that (a) and (b) are ****. He told me:

"I don't know where you got this info from, but its wrong.

You can use 1066 in XP just fine, and yes you do utilize the extra speed from it. Since when did an operating system care about system speed? Volume can be a different issue as some operating systems cannot always address the full volume of different hardware (eg. large hard drives, large amounts of RAM).

I would strongly recommend that you get the fastest RAM your motherboard will support, or consider going a step higher if you are planning on overclocking. "

What should I do!?
 
Geeksquad is BS on wheels, ddr 1066 will improve your loading times and let you overclock better since memory latency is higher so you have more space to play around with fsb. They say the difference in loading times are 3-7sec depending on your hardware configuration. I will be building my pc on september and I decided I will use 1066 also with vista 64bit.

 

invisik

Distinguished
Mar 27, 2008
2,476
0
19,810
u can oc on both very well. ppl with 800mhz have there e8400 at like over 4.0ghz so im assuming there very overclockable. 1066 gives a slight boost but i rather buy which one is cheaper. if there price is about the same get the 1066 if the price difference is like 30-40$ get 800mhz.
 

blackwidow_rsa

Distinguished
Aug 16, 2007
846
0
18,990
Assuming you have a core2 with a 1333mhz fsb you won't use that extra speed, only if you have your ram in single channel. With dual channel and a 1:1 memory to fsb divider your ram will run at 667mhz. You can still oc alot too with decent ddr800. My budget ram get up to 880 jsuk. Save a buck and get a decent pair of corsair, ocz, etc ram and save a buck
(sorry, im a bit confusing)
 

timaahhh

Distinguished
Nov 5, 2007
279
0
18,790
Just to be sure put a 440 Hz tuning fork inside your case for a day or two to make sure your powersupply is properly tuned. If your system does not ring in perfect pitch then your powersupply is outta tune and might fry everything in your house. J/k

Btw you aren't gonna see a huge increase in performance over DDR 2 800 especially in an Intel rig unless you are doing a lot of really intensive memory work. But DDR 2 factory at 1066 should allow ya more room for overclocking.
 

georgy

Distinguished
Jun 22, 2008
186
0
18,680
Unless you overclock much, you don't benefit from ddr 1066. For example, a e8400 cpu (333mhz fsb * 9x multiplier = 3 ghz) would use ddr 667 at a ratio of 1:1. If you overclock it and set fbs at 400mhz, it will be at 3.6 ghz (400 * 9) and you would use ddr 800 at a ratio of 1:1. If you want 4ghz out of this cpu, put fsb at 445mhz.. but oh noes you have ddr800 and it would bottleneck... NO. You just release memory timings (5-5-5-15), increase voltages and it runs just like ddr 1066, same speed same timings ;). ddr 1066 is overclocked ddr800.

These guys at geeksquad are morons...
 

roadrunner197069

Splendid
Sep 3, 2007
4,416
0
22,780
I doubt the guy at qeeksquad could scrw in a lightbulb.

No one that knows about computers is gonna work for Qeeksquad for a meesly $8/hr, when they can do it on their own and charge $50+/hr.
 

sseyler

Distinguished
May 14, 2008
207
0
18,690
The OP said "one of the geeks at the store," without referring to any specific store, nor did he say "Geeksquad" specifically. I find it funny that people automatically assume he was talking about BestBuy and Geeksquad and then proceed to rip on their lack of competence.

I'll agree with the latter part of my last statement.
 

Brockavich

Distinguished
Aug 2, 2008
36
0
18,530
Yeah... I wasn't talking about Geek Squad you guys. I go to a local shop called ITech Systems.

Anyways... I seem to be getting quite a myriad of answers...



But let's say I plan to one day get an aftermarket cooler and start OC-ing my rig
1066 or 800? I was thinking if the prices are relatively close to each other ($20 or so), then I should go with the 1066. Sound like a plan?



 

lameness

Distinguished
Sep 23, 2007
252
0
18,780
Are you sure the guy in the shop wasn't telling you that xp 32 cant fully utilise the 4 gigs of ram?

I dont know where he got statement b from.....but perhaps because u were interested in 1066mhz ram he assumed you were intending to go for big OC and was warning you about the fact that most PSU's cant cope.

As other people have said, you will see very little improvement in 1066 over 800 because in order to actually run @ 1066 you will need a memory divider different than 1:1...dividers other than 1:1 actually increase latency in memory such that memory @ 850 using a different divider is likely to be slower than memory @ 800 using 1:1. When u get up to 1066 then the extra mhz will compensate for the latency....but in reality it wont be noticable.

The only advantage of 1066 is that it is cherry picked ddr 800 and therefore is certain to run at higher speeds allowing for large overclocks for people who want to push their fsb very high.
 

tented

Distinguished
Mar 5, 2009
1
0
18,510
The real question is, did any of you actually upgrade from 800 to 1066 DDR2 and run before and after benchmarks, like 3dmark? Computers don't lie.
 

bmuell

Distinguished
Feb 23, 2009
154
0
18,680
Value PC800 ram might not overclock to 1066 but most name brands can do it fine at the right timings/voltage.

Generally speaking, ram rated at lower timings with lower voltage requirements are easier to overclock since there's more room to adjust upwards.

For example, G.Skill Pi Black DDR2 PC800 CAS 4 at 1.8v can be overlocked easily just increase voltage to 2.1v and it can run at 1066. As lameness said, the difference is that PC1066 ram is guaranteed by the manufacturer to run (overclock) at that speed with the quoted timings.

This is really the main principle of overclocking which applies to cpus as well, but as always not all chips are equal and often the max stable frequency you can achieve on any chip is a matter of luck.
 

Lord_Hades

Distinguished
Mar 4, 2009
12
0
18,510


I dont run my memory linked and sync'ed, but rather unlinked with the sli ready or epp option enabled, unless im doing a massive fsb and cpu overclock and then i have to just play with it for stability.

Here Is what i have discovered with 3dmark vantage , 3dmark 03 and 3dmark 06 and other benchmark tools about memory timings:

DDR2 800 with timings of say 4-4-4-12-2t or 1t will outperform ddr2 1066 with timings of 5-5-5-18 2t by a marginal amount of points.

The exact same thing goes for ddr3

Unlinked DDR3 2000mhz with timings of 9-9-9-24 2t currently will not outperform ddr3 1800 at 8-8-8-22 2t.

The Only Exception to any of this is if you get really good memory that scales like good memory should, you can run lower latency and higher frequency at the same time and pick up alot more on a benchmark.

For example: I have some 2x2gb OCZ Reaper Memory that is advertised at ddr2 1066 5-5-5-18 2t @ 2.2v
I have been able to get this memory to scale at 1066 with timings of 5-5-5-5 2t stable or i can run 5-5-5-18 at 1150 mhz or 800mhz at 4-4-4-12-1t. I have tried the memory at 1280mhz but its not worth it on a benchmark because i had to loosen the timings up so much.

if you dont believe me get some and try it: it so cheap now its almost disposable....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227289