PC2 Memory question

[m2moore]

I have a Gateway GT5636e system... okay, not the latest and greatest, but I'm not looking to do a major upgrade. I upgraded it to Win7 64-bit (had Vista 32-bit previously) and I'm looking at the memory right now. At this time, I have 2Gb of PC2-6400 rated memory and 2Gb of PC2-5300 (obviously, faster memory is running at the lower speed right now). My question regards this... the motherboard will allow up to 4Gb of PC2-6400 memory, or up to 8Gb of PC2-5300 memory. Would I be better of going with the 4Gb of faster memory, or going with the greater size of the slower memory. If I went with the latter, I'd initially go 6Gb, so I guess it would be a 4Gb of 800Mhz versus 6Gb of 667MHz memory.

Other info... my processor is an Intel Quad Q6600. Corsair PSU at 650W.

Thanks!

 

[RealBeast]

Unless you are doing something where you would benefit from more that 4gb of memory, like video editing or running virtual machines, I would probably just stick with what you have now.

You will not really notice any difference from a small speed bump of PC2-6400 over the 5300. An SSD for the OS would probably give you the biggest bang for your buck.

 

[m2moore]

Thanks Realbeast... I wasn't sure how much bang for the buck I'd get. If I could get a performance improvement, then I'd look at it. Just didn't know how much of a boost I'd get by getting all the same memory vice the split I have right now.