Is my RAM bottlenecking my system?

[thefilmcritic1]

I made a post prior to this but not really any clear response so I'll repost I would love some help on this issue

Ok guys,

so I'll let you know exactlly what my specs are
I got a Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H mobo
Phenom II Quad core 955 BE 3.2 not overclocked
8 gigs ddr2 (2 sticks 667)(2 sticks 800)
ocz 770 w PSU
Saphire 6870 GPU
aslo my hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM

and wondering if anything that you see here might be bottle necking I play alot of well....Guild wars,allods,mw2,killing floor,dungeon defenders,payday,saints row 2....etc and I've tried everything and I always get a lag I use Fraps to rec most of my game play and I notice sometimes I will be rec for instance MW2 and will be rec on almost max all the time I would say every 2-3 mins my frams drop and I lag only for like 1.5 secs then back up to normal it doesnt happen as often when I'm not recording but still does happen I had a heating Issue prior but got that fixed it runs around 56C while recording mw2 I'm stumped I cant think of what to do is it my ram bottlenecking my rig or maybe my cpu bottlenecking my GPU.

This sucks as I do youtube and want the best quality I'm going to be buying a AM3+ mobo and 12gigs of 1600 DDR3 in the future once I get the cash just wondering If Ill show a performance increase at all or is it a waist of time and info please email me

also I did a 3DMARKs test my score was P3886 3DMarks it says it was low would my ram be the problem

another quick question would 4gs of ddr2 800mhz be faster then 8gs ddr2 of 667mhz or vice cersa

 

[GI_JONES]

When you mix ram speeds like that, it all defaults to the slower speed, so basically right now you have 8gb's of ram at 667Mhz. Since the PhenomII is capable of running DDR3 ram at twice that speed (1333), I would say yes your ram is holding back your cpu, which then in turn holds up your graphics. You would benefit from upgrading to a motherboard that supports DDR3, but 8gb is plenty. You would not notice the difference between 8 and 16. I dont think any games even utilize more than 4gb, so that leaves 4 for the rest which should do it. If you edit HD video content, then the additional 8 could be benificial. Get a decent cpu cooler and overclock that cpu too. There are some decent ones out there for less than $35.00, but make sure you get one that fits in your case. Some of them are 6 inches tall or more. I bought a Zalman cnps 9700 and lowered my cpu temp by 10 degrees over the stock unit. You are ok at 56C but it doesnt give you much room to overclock. Oh just noticed you said 12gigs of ram, not 16. 12 isnt really a good idea either, since dual channel memory kits come in 2's or 4's, and there isnt such a thing as a 3gb stick. You wouldnt want to buy a board that had 4 ram slots, then buy 3 single 4gb sticks either, as that would screw up the system running in dual channel mode

 

[thefilmcritic1]

When you mix ram speeds like that, it all defaults to the slower speed, so basically right now you have 8gb's of ram at 667Mhz. Since the PhenomII is capable of running DDR3 ram at twice that speed (1333), I would say yes your ram is holding back your cpu, which then in turn holds up your graphics. You would benefit from upgrading to a motherboard that supports DDR3, but 8gb is plenty. You would not notice the difference between 8 and 16. I dont think any games even utilize more than 4gb, so that leaves 4 for the rest which should do it. If you edit HD video content, then the additional 8 could be benificial. Get a decent cpu cooler and overclock that cpu too. There are some decent ones out there for less than $35.00, but make sure you get one that fits in your case. Some of them are 6 inches tall or more. I bought a Zalman cnps 9700 and lowered my cpu temp by 10 degrees over the stock unit. You are ok at 56C but it doesnt give you much room to overclock. Oh just noticed you said 12gigs of ram, not 16. 12 isnt really a good idea either, since dual channel memory kits come in 2's or 4's, and there isnt such a thing as a 3gb stick. You wouldnt want to buy a board that had 4 ram slots, then buy 3 single 4gb sticks either, as that would screw up the system running in dual channel mode

Ya I know it would default to the slower speed as for the DDR3 I will just get the 2x 4g sticks and I was planning on getting a better cooler I can typicaly overclock it a bit now with the stock cooler to like 3.4 with no problems but do you think 8gigs of ddr2 could actually bottleneck my system? I can of want to be certain cause I would prefer to wait on the new mobo and ram if possible I dont really have 300$ to dish out right now and I would like to be certain that's the issue any suggestions?

 

[thefilmcritic1]

Best answer selected by thefilmcritic1.

 

[nikorr]

This topic has been closed by Nikorr