Memory advice

[jedi940]

I am going to upgrade my laptop to 4GB of Memory soon. I was wondering which would be a better performance boost. I am either going to get 2x2GB @667 4-4-4-12 or 2x2GB 800 5-5-5-15. I don't know which would be a better use of my money. They are both about the same price.

Laptop specs:
dv6661se
TL-58 (1.9GHz)
2GB Ram
Geforce 7150
160GB HD

Also, would stepping up to 800mhz ram decrease my batterylife?

 

[lostandwandering]

Get the 667 because as far as I know, your system can not use the 800 and would just clock it down to 667 anyway. The timings on the 667 are better as well. What OS are you using (Vista or XP and 32 or 64bit)?

 

[lostandwandering]

flipping double post.

 

[jedi940]

Vista Ultimate 64 for the OS

I wondered about the 800 speed as well but Everest told me this about my chipset.

Supported Memory Types DDR2-400 SDRAM, DDR2-533 SDRAM, DDR2-667 SDRAM, DDR2-800 SDRAM

Do you think that this means it will run that fast or just support it but down clock it?

 

[lostandwandering]

It looks like it will actually use it at 800mhz. Not really sure if there is a noticeable performance jump from 667 to 800, I would just get whatever is cheaper.

Only reason I asked about the OS (and you probably knew this) is that 32-bit OS' can't read the full 4gb of RAM. Just wanted to make sure you weren't wasting your money.

 

[jedi940]

I figured that was why you were checking the OS and I did know about the limit but I do appreciate you making sure

They are both about the same price ~ $100

If I were to get 800MHz at 4-4-4-12 that would cost about $25 more

The reason I ask is that I have heard that AMD chips are more sensitive to latency due to the memory controller being on the chip so i wondered which would give me the biggest performance jump.