Another RAM question...

[TheWobble]

I have 256mb of pc-100 ram in right now, My gf bough me a stick 128mb stick of PC-133 cause i was a good boy. Im running an Athlon 800.

I have 2 128 sticks in now @ pc 100

My question IS!
Can you mix pc 133 ram with pc-100?
AND
If not would 128mb of 133 be better than 256 of 100?
I dont want to fry anything so i want some opinions first  

[SOB]

Shouldn't be a problem.  Give it a try and see if you notice any glitches...definitely shouldn't fry anything.  PC133 just means it's rated to run up to 133mHz.


SOB

[SKurj]

its all safe if yer motherboard is happy with 3 sticks in
I currently run 1 pc66 64mb and 1 pc125 64mb stick both running at 112mhz FSB.  The 133/100 only represents the frequency that the ram is rated to withstand.  Any less than rated is perfectly fine.  Anymore though can create troubles.  Its very unlikely that you would see any performance difference between the 2 types, and if there was a difference I'd imagine we hoomans would have a helluva time spotting it.

AKSKurj

[bloom25]

On an Athlon system using a VIA chipset I'd be wary of mixing even brands of memory, let alone speed.  Some MBs (mine can) will let you run the memory clock at 133 vs the 100 Mhz the processor FSB is at.  This gives quite a large performance boost.  (Remember, current Athlons run at 100 Mhz FSB, but it is double pumped [DDR] to give the 200 Mhz figure that is used.)  Running at 133 Mhz for your Ram really improves performance, and allows some headroom for overclocking the FSB of a Athlon.

Given the almost zero price difference between pc 133 and pc 100, I would never settle for pc 100.

I think I should also mention that IMO if you already have 128MB of RAM in a Win9x system, your money is better spent elsewhere.  You will get at best a 2% performance increase.  Windows 9x, though capable of addressing up to 1/2 a gig of ram, is really stupid in actually making use of over 128 MB of it.  If you have Win2k or plan on getting it though, then this is a great idea.

 

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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[TheWobble]

the question stands...is 128mb of pc-133 better than 256mb of pc-100?

[bloom25]

That depends...

First of all read this http://www4.tomshardware.com/howto/00q2/000413/index.html

It is a little out of date, but the basic ideas hold true.

In some cases 256 MB of PC 100 would be faster than 128 MB of PC 133.  (Running Win2k, heavy duty graphics applications.)

If your motherboard allows you to run asyncronous memory and CPU clock speeds, then 128MB of PC133 would probably be faster under Win9x for things like games and the OS itself.

What you should read from this article is that the 128 to 256 MB upgrade doesn't make much of a difference.  (It certainly won't help AH much.  Take a look at the Expendible benchmark.)  A 7200 RPM hard drive, or a faster processor with 128 MB of Ram will be faster than a 5400 RPM drive with 256 MB of RAM.

If you are dead set on buying more ram, I would personally probably try the 256 MB way first of all.  You don't know for certain if you can run your RAM at PC133.  If you find that you can then that complicates matters.  The choice then would largely depend on what programs you run on your computer.



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[bloom25]

I thought I'd add I'm running a Thunderbird 700 @ 900 Mhz on an Asus A7V.  The a7v allows the memory to run at 133, even though the processor is at 100.  This 33 Mhz can actually be really helpful in moderate overclocking by bumping up the processor FSB, since your RAM is not limiting how fast you can set the FSB.  In my case though, I just used a conductive pen and set my Thunderbird multiplier to 9x.  If I wanted to, I could probably go to 918 Mhz by running at 102 FSb, but the performance increase wouldn't be much at all.



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[Pepino]

Ahhhhh! THAT RAM  

Pepe

[TheWobble]

Well i took out the 256mb of pc-100 and slapped in the 128 of pc-133, and EVERYTHING runs FASTER, i got a 5fps boost on ah and windows cruises along better now too.

[214thCavalier]

But more importantly PC133 memory will let you OC your cpu higher than PC100 would.
i just changed from some PC133 cas 3 memory to some Crucial PC133 cas 2 and cpu now clocks 100mhz higher and totally stable i may even tweak some more after my nightly AH fix.
Btw a Tbird 850 clocked at 1100mhz is a beautiful thing  

[Skuzzy]

Today, the difference between 133 and 100 FSB, is the 100 FSB did not make the qualification to be called 133.

BUT, the huge difference is whether or not the ram is buffered or unbuffered, and whether or not it is registered or unregistered ram.

In the above "BUT", you must make sure your ram all matches.  The memory controllers, no matter who makes them, cannot handle the mixing of the above types of ram.

The only way to know what type of ram it is is by using the manufacturers part number and checking with them to find out what type of ram it is.

Hope this helps.


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Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net