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Need some basic info for those that have tried...

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Dakker

Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2003
Location
Washington, DC
For the most part it seems the top end ram (DDR4000+) comes in bundles like 256x2 and 512x2.

Here's my question :

Would I notice more performance if I added another stick of PC3200 (like in my sig) or if I bought 2x256 of DDR4400 (like OCZ's) or 1 stick of 512 of DDR4400?

And by performance I mean loading times in games and such. I know that more means faster load times, but less with faster bandwidth can also mean faster load times...

I'm into pushing my OC's to the max on my measly budget, and I plan on upgrading to a 800Mhz FSB CPU here pretty soon, but I want to do a memory upgrade first as starting out at 200FSB for an OC is gonna put a hurting on my PC3200.

Thanks :)
 
PC3200 may limit overclocking by FSB, but this can be overcome by using RAM dividers.

For example, at stock - FSB=200MHz, RAM = 200MHz(DDR=400MHz). As you increase FSB more and more away from stock, the RAM is overclocked more and more. Ie if FSB=250Mhz, RAM=250MHz. The RAM may not handle this, so you would set a 5:4 divider in BIOS rather than 1:1. Thus the RAM would run at 4/5 of the FSB, in the above case it would be at 200MHz rather than 250MHz. However, if you used PC4000 RAM rather than PC3200 the PC4000 RAM can run at 250MHz (DDR=500MHz) speeds. This would let you run a 1:1 divider and allow for more memory bandwidth at overclocked speeds.

In short:
At stock, PC3200 and PC4000 RAM will both run at PC3200 speeds, no benefit from PC4000

When overclocked, PC3200 will have to remain around PC3200 speeds, whereas PC4000 RAM will provide more memory bandwidth as it can run faster.
 
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