memory upgrade questions

[Gingerade]

well im thinking about getting some new ram but theres a problem that my friends saying.
i wanna get this ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145015

currently i am using the 1 gig of ram that came with my gateway pc that i took the parts from. the thing is that it is also 5400 speed so hes saying there will be no difference at all because its the same speed. when i get the ram i will also be getting the c2d e6600. so with that ram and the processor will i see a diff in my games from my pent d 820 and 1 gig. i also have a 8800gts but its getting bottlenecked i guess cuz i only get like 30fps in css when theres a bunch of ppl.

 

[Track]

What do u mean "there will be no difference because its the same speed"?

Obviously its going to be 2GB now, instead of 1GB, so how can that give u no performance increase.

There is no difference between PC2-5400 and PC2-10000, because RAM speed dosent matter in game performance, and hardly in anything else.
The only reason ppl buy higher clocked RAM, is so that the can clock their FSBs higher and thus their CPUs. So buy the RAM accordingly with the FSB u want to overclock to. I suggest buying a Zalman CNPS 9700 and overclocking the E6600 to 3.6Ghz. Meaning that u will need DDR2-800 RAM.
These are the best - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231065

The ONLY thing that really matters is how much of that RAM u have. So 2GB is going to be a hell of a lot better for games than 1GB.

 

[Mondoman]

Of course there's a difference between DDR2-5400 and DDR2-10000. Whether you notice a performance increase or not depends on the details of what apps you run and on the other components of your system. For example, once you've saturated the throughput of your FSB, further performance increases with increasing memory bus speed are lessened. Since RAM at DDR2-533 speed running in dual-channel mode saturates the standard 1066MHz data rate FSB, you can see why many don't want to spend a lot of money for faster RAM. Here's some data to look at: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=1&artpage=1962&articID=472

 

[Track]

So if i have my FSB at 2133Mhz and i have DDR2-1066 RAM in dual-channel, then i have the maximum ammount of performance i can have??

 

[Mondoman]

That would certainly be a very fast system, but you can already get RAM that runs faster than DDR2-1066, so I wouldn't call it "maximum performance".

 

[Track]

That would certainly be a very fast system, but you can already get RAM that runs faster than DDR2-1066, so I wouldn't call it "maximum performance".

But if my RAM is running at 1066, then if my FSB is not higher than 2133, there will be no difference in performance because the FSB will be bottlenecking the RAM, as u say.

 

[Mondoman]

While the *max throughput* may be saturated, latency can still be reduced, increasing overall performance a bit. This is presumably why tests show performance of a C2D DDR2-800 system as better than that of a DDR2-533 system (though not by much), with both in dual-channel mode and 1066MHz FSB data rate.

 

[Gingerade]

so will i notice a diff in mostly gaming and some movie editing

 

[Mondoman]

From the new CPU, yes. From adding more RAM, Windows in general yes and movie editing yes, gaming probably not a big difference.

 

[Track]

While the *max throughput* may be saturated, latency can still be reduced, increasing overall performance a bit. This is presumably why tests show performance of a C2D DDR2-800 system as better than that of a DDR2-533 system (though not by much), with both in dual-channel mode and 1066MHz FSB data rate.

And how much of an icrease in performance would i see from the lower latency? not much i pressume..

And i think u mean "some DDR2-533 systems are better than some DDR2-800 systems", cause that would make sense together with ur latency theory.

 

[Mondoman]

....
And how much of an icrease in performance would i see from the lower latency?

Here's some data: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=1&artpage=1962&articID=472

....And i think u mean "some DDR2-533 systems are better than some DDR2-800 systems", ...

Nope, the DDR2-800 runs faster, at least for the tests in the article above.

 

[Track]

action=getarticle&number=1&artpage=1962&articID=472

....And i think u mean "some DDR2-533 systems are better than some DDR2-800 systems", ...

Nope, the DDR2-800 runs faster, at least for the tests in the article above.

But since 533 is the maximum the FSB will use, the 533 are better because of their lower latency.

That would make perfect sense.

 

[Mondoman]

Since the DDR2-800 setups run programs faster than the DDR2-533 setups, the DDR2-800 setups would seem to be "better" if not by a lot.
Remember that latencies are commonly listed as clock cycles, which are 33% shorter at DDR2-800 than at DDR2-533.