Author Topic: 1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?  (Read 745 times)

Offline Sundowner

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« on: April 24, 2005, 08:49:03 AM »
Hey guys,

Looking at putting together a new system and was wondering about the advantage of going with 2GB of RAM(2X1024mb) versus 1GB of RAM(2X512mb).
Yes, I know 2GB would be more expensive.
Other than that, what are the pros/cons of adding the extra memory?

Regards
Sun
Freedom implies risk. Less freedom implies more risk.

Offline Kev367th

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2005, 11:38:57 AM »
I believe it's hard to come across 1024mb sticks with a low latency compared to 512mb sticks.
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2 x 2Gb Corsair 1066 DDR2 memory

Offline buzkill

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2005, 12:10:11 PM »
cost

Offline Sundowner

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Freedom implies risk. Less freedom implies more risk.

Offline Sundowner

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2005, 12:15:30 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by buzkill
cost


Cost not a problem, got about $3000 to put into a box.

Regards
Sun
Freedom implies risk. Less freedom implies more risk.

Offline Kev367th

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2005, 12:55:36 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Sundowner
Thx for the response, Kev.

Would the latency on this be too high?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=541465&sourceid=qIqsQmvSbWX7AlvvRAXS&siteid=0039579460&CMP=AFC-AFFIL&Sku=ULT31430&SRCCODE=BEFREE

Regards
Sun


CAS3 is pretty bad, you should be aiming for at least CAS2.5 and if you can find them CAS2.
I wonder how much of the cost is the mahogany box? Thats just plain insane.
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Asus M3N-HT mobo
2 x 2Gb Corsair 1066 DDR2 memory

Offline Siaf__csf

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2005, 01:05:43 PM »
ECC memory = slow. Stay away from it unless you're building a server for a non-gaming use.

Offline Sundowner

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2005, 01:23:44 PM »
thx guys
 Sun
Freedom implies risk. Less freedom implies more risk.

Offline 68DevilM

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2005, 02:05:52 PM »
another question?

is it alright to mix ram up?

what i mean is i have 1 gig of corsair ddr400 (PC3200)

would it be good to add the 512mb of (PC2700) to that as long as its supported by the cpu?

Offline zmeg

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2005, 03:04:11 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by 68DevilM
another question?

is it alright to mix ram up?

what i mean is i have 1 gig of corsair ddr400 (PC3200)

would it be good to add the 512mb of (PC2700) to that as long as its supported by the cpu?


 No, it will slow all your ram down to pc2700 speed.

Offline 68DevilM

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2005, 03:16:13 PM »
rgr that

Offline Siaf__csf

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2005, 03:24:09 PM »
Umm the ram rating won't slow anything to any speed. The bus speeds are controlled through bios and the ram speed is usually 1:1 with cpu fsb. This means that your ram won't necessarily run any faster or slower even if you stick a different kind of ram in the slot.

Then again mixing ram does force the rest of the system to follow the weakest link, limiting the highest possible bus speeds overall.

This won't be a problem unless you

A) Use ram that's underrated for your cpu
B) Plan to overclock through fsb.

In any case if the PC rating is high enough for the system it's fine. Getting higher rated memory is like installing a spoiler to a ford pinto - expensive and useless. But upgradeable if you later buy a corvette and switch the part there. ;)
« Last Edit: April 24, 2005, 03:26:30 PM by Siaf__csf »

Offline eagl

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2005, 03:44:18 PM »
Siaf,

The bios will automatically detect that there is pc2700 ram installed and will clock down the memory bus speed to 166 mhz for all installed memory.  For the last several years, pretty much all motherboards have been able to run the cpu and memory asychronously so at default settings for an athlon64, the cpu will be at 200 mhz and the memory will be the rated speed of the memory, up to 200 mhz.

The memory bus hasn't been locked to the cpu bus for a couple of years for most chipsets.  Even the pci and agp clocks are now able to run at speeds independent from the FSB, and many can be locked at any speed you want regardless of the FSB.

If you put only pc3200 into an athlon64 mobo, it will detect and run at 200mhz (ddr400).  If you add in a stick of pc2700, it will run at 166mhz.  But if you put in PC4000, it will generally top out at 200mhz by default due to that being the max officially supported memory speed for the athlon 64 and all chipsets.  You can go in and manually set the memory speed on many a64 motherboards up past 250mhz, but then you have to set the hypertransport bus multiplier down to keep the HTT speed below 1ghz.

So again the short answer is that adding a stick of pc2700 will result in the memory speed reducing to match the slower pc2700 speed.  You can try to overclock the pc2700 back up to pc3200 speeds, but you'd probably have to increase memory timings if you wanted any chance at getting it to run reliably.

Plus more than 2 sticks of memory in an athlon64 mobo is not always guaranteed to work, and you might have to further reduce the memory speed by selecting 2T command rate just to get it to boot.  If you don't need the memory, you're better off without it.
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Offline Siaf__csf

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1GB RAM vs 2GB RAM?
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2005, 03:50:19 PM »
Check condition a on my list pls.

If the ram can achieve synch bus speed it's good enough bus speed wise.

Asynch ram settings are usually slower in overall performance even if you run the mem higher than fsb.

Therefore it's enough to get a stick that can do the rated speed, any higher is a waste of money.

In 68devils case the PC2700 would fall into category a and would be a no-go. I just protested on the 'slows down your' comment which isn't accurate.

Sure the bios will autodetect all sorts of things, it won't mean you're stuck to those settings anyway, at least on most boards. Some sucky boards can of course limit your control to the extent but it's better to stay away from them.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2005, 03:59:40 PM by Siaf__csf »