Another gig of RAM

[Phayzon]

Just got another 2x512MB sticks of DDR400, for a total of 2GB. Man, this made a HUGE difference. I can run Quake4 @ Ultra Quality, 1280x1024, 16xAF, 4xAA :D:D:D Anyone who is wondering if they should upgrade, DO IT, system performence increases noticeably

EDIT: Forgot to add the whole point of this post :p
I know for a fact a bought DDR 400Mhz (PC3200), but in CPUz all 4 sticks register at
PC3200 200Mhz. Huh? Any idea why? Is this somehow dualchannel related? (dont ask why I asked, I still am not sure of what exactly dual channel is)

[Damien_Azreal]

Yep, after I went to 2GB a year ago my next PC will definietly have 2.

[Sniper]

Benchmarks show that it's much better to have two 1gb sticks of ram, rather than four 512mb sticks. There's a big bottleneck with memory performance if you just keep tacking on 512mb sticks.

Right now I'm still with 1gb, I really don't think 2gb is needed yet.

Your DDR-400 ram sticks should be running at 200mhz, that's correct.

[Phayzon]

I already had 2x512, and Damien, IIRC, said he uses 4x512 and its fine.
About speed, oh ok.

[NutWrench]

EDIT: Forgot to add the whole point of this post :p
I know for a fact a bought DDR 400Mhz (PC3200), but in CPUz all 4 sticks register at
PC3200 200Mhz. Huh? Any idea why? Is this somehow dualchannel related? (dont ask why I asked, I still am not sure of what exactly dual channel is)

Yes. Because data is transmitted twice in each clock cycle, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_pumped) the effective speed is 400 Mhz, even though the bus speed is only 200 Mhz.

[Sniper]

Well I'm sure it's "fine" Phayzon, but you're still not getting optimal performance.

2 x 512mb, 1 x 1gb, or 2 x 1gb has higher performance than 4 x 512mb.

[Phayzon]

It wasnt me who payed, so im not bitching

[Damien_Azreal]

Yes, 2 1GB sticks will be faster than 4 512 sticks.

But I still noticed a huge improvement in loading, stuttering problems going away and general performance.

[NutWrench]

Hmmm, I think I might get another gig of ram next week.

[tf0t]

what is the difference between 3200 and 4200? i got 1.5gb of 4200, which im about to double...

[Little Conqueror]

I will be the first to admit I know little about hardware. However, today, it seems that RAM is what's truly making or breaking systems as far as "outdated" goes. My system is a P4 2.8 ghz with 4GB RAM and hyperthreading, and though it's a few years old, it can pretty much compete with anything put out there today (within reason). I started out with 512MB, and every time I went to Ironforge in WoW, the game slowed to a crawl. Now, no slowdown at all.

[Phayzon]

what is the difference between 3200 and 4200? i got 1.5gb of 4200, which im about to double...

3200 is DDR400 (For AMD platforms), 4200 I belive is DDR2-533 (for Intel platforms). I know little about Intel/DDR2 platforms so dont take my word beyond the fact that 4200 is DDR2.

[Damien_Azreal]

Yes,

I run 2GB PC-4200 DDR2 Ram 533mhz. It's meant for Intel based motherboards. PC-3200 is meant for AMD.

[Jeff]

I started out with 512MB, and every time I went to Ironforge in WoW, the game slowed to a crawl.

That could also depend on your server's amount of people too. Kalecgos is a low to medium sized server (gets to medium sometimes), and I'm not getting as much lag in Ironforge or anywhere else. The 2 GB helped a little, but this could be another factor.

[Nessus]

I had a gig of RAMBUS and then one 512 chip burned out. Now I have 512 and HL2 takes freaking forever to load a level and I get stutters in games, no doubt 2 gigs is the way to go but the question I have is, is it worth it to get 4 gigs? I remember a post by Terminix where he said it was too much due too addressing issues or something and then in normal circumstances it could have you run slower, I can't recall what he said but it made sense at the time.

[Phayzon]

2 would be better than 4 these days, TX is right (when isnt he?).

[Damien_Azreal]

Yep.
4GB would actually slow your PC down more than it would help it.

[oak man]

I'm gonna buy a gig of ram as soon as there is a sale somewhere.
so lets see 256MB + 1GB= ? a gig is like 1million 1million or something so 2 million mega bytes??

[Bludd]

Mega means million and with regards to memory it's binary so 1 MiB (megabinary) = 2^20 bytes.

Giga means billion, that is thousand million.

1 GiB (gigabinary) = 2^30 bytes

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

[oak man]

well thanks I learnd something!:)