Memory question please, thank you.

[jtryton]

I have an ASUS P5N-D, with a 3.0 c2duo, and a ati 4670 512 meg video card.

I'm either going to buy G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (4-4-4-12) - Retail

or

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory (5-5-5-15) - Retail

Which one should I buy? Sometimes they test out these mid-range cards with 2 gigs of total memory, and sometimes they indeed go all the way and use 4 gigs of total memory. I have windows xp if that matters.

Thank you for your time. If whoever answers this could, please state the reason why either or the other is better or worse. The ram I mean. heh

****the person below did not know I had made a typo, and my question still needs answering please! thank you!! =D *****

 

[badge]

or G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (5-5-5-15) - Retail

If whoever answers this could, please state the reason why either or the other is better or worse.

This is worse. Why? ...PC3200 DDR 400 will not work in your machine. You will need DDR2.

 

[jtryton]

ooops. that second one was incorrect. let me ask the question again. should I get G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (4-4-4-12) - Retail ,

or

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory (5-5-5-15) - Retail ?


I wonder if the person who answered my question knew I had made a mistake. Guess there was no way to INFER that I had? haha

 

[shabaa]

Given that both are DDR 2 800 and the bandwidth is the same the difference between them will be the ability of one to deliver the same amount of work in less time. Now with that stated.... are you going to overclock this to an extreme where every nanosecond is critical and counts? Probably not.......... the timings that the memory is advertised to work at is of little difference to most...... just as SATA2 hard drives supposedly have potential to transfer 300 MB/s the fact of the matter is that no non solid state drives surpass the SATA 150 transfer rate. Intel's SSD's are coming close to saturating the SATA 2 speeds but with the finalization/standardization and implementation of SATA IO (SATA3 600MB/s) These drives can use the POTENTIAL.

If this seems like jibbersh to you .. sorry.... my answer would be to get the best bang for the buck with your sights set on what you are actually are going to do. Going to try and break overclocking records and run benchmarks all day? Get the one with the lower timings.... gonna really use this box?..... Get the lower cost of the two as they are both fine components.

In the end ... it is you money that you are spending.

 

[jtryton]

Thank you very much. It made total sense to me. you're great. I think I'll just go with the 4 gigs then. If it doesn't make a crazy amount of difference in games. =D