Mixing different RAM Speeds?

[Charge]

It seems that this article contradicts my recommendation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-channel_architecture

"How much difference is there between quality memories and cheaper ones?"

The difference is generally the internal clocking which could be for plain DDR something like this:

Cheap: 3-3-3-8-2
Expensive. 2-2-2-6-1

At least SiSoft Sandra shows me a significant boost when changing DDR timings from 2.5-3-3-8-2 to 2-3-3-8-1 but the article in the link above states that in reality the benefit may be marginal.

ed. yeah, its "latency" as OOZ pointed out.

More of the subject here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDRAM

http://www.kingston.com/newtech/MKF_520DDRwhitepaper.pdf


-C+

[Wilbus]

Uhm ok... I just remembered I did buy the fastest clock speed for my Mobo (800mhz) but still the cheapo memory, question is do I have anything to gain from either putting another 2gb in (even though windows XP won't see it all) or upgrading it do, pherhaps quality memory?

Thanks again. Didn't qutie understand all that charge but thanks

[OOZ662]

It won't be process-the-whole-of-the-internet-in-twenty-seconds kind of improvement, but yes, lower latency RAM will provide an at least somewhat noticeable gain in most cases.

It depends on what you're trying to do. If your CPU and hard drive are fast, you can decide not to preload things to free up RAM for calculations.
If your CPU is busy enough with flight dynamics or you've got an IDE generic hard drive, load up on mid- to high-quality, high-volume RAM. Buy matching sticks and make sure they're running in dual-channel mode. Turn on preloading in the game and you'll see quite an increase if the system will handle it.

My gaming computer has 4x512 PC3200 DDR sticks in it in dual channel and a SATA hard drive at 10k RPM, meaning I can preload even the hi-res textures. (When the system runs out of RAM, it uses something called a page file on your hard drive to act like RAM, hence why the hard drive even plays a role). That way when I preload too much, it spills into a drive that's fast enough to at least fake like it's keeping up with the RAM.