To upgrade or not to upgrade

Howdy all. Long time reader (well not that long but any ho), first time poster.

I usually do alot of research and find my answers without posting but I am short on time due to RL issues and was wondering if you guys can give some advice.

I'm considering upgrading my RAM and am not sure wheather it would make any difference.

Currently I am running 1GIG PC2100 (2x512). My MOBO (ASUS A8V Deluxe) is capable of running PC3200 RAM and I was wondering if you guys think I would notice a difference by upgrading. Currently due to the RAM I have now I am only able to run in single channel mode. By upgrading to PC3200 I will be able to run in dual channel mode.

ECC vs NON-ECC? According to SiSoft SANDRA it recommends running ECC with large amounts of RAM. I understand that ECC RAM is primarily used in servers so I assume I should stay away from it.

Next, is gaming RAM ie: Crucial Ballistiks, etc. really worth the investment?
I do not OC my system so I don't see any since of investing in the gaming RAM unless it really makes some sort of difference at stock speeds.

Any recommendations greatly appreciated

If you don't plan on OC'ing, just get the Corsair 1GB Value Select. They have it on sale all the time at newegg for <100$.

I know whats available but what I am trying to decide on is if the performance increase is worth the investment or not?

to the Forum!
I think that it is and it;s not a huge investment. Also, I'd go with the entry level GSkills as they are also under $100 but are CL2. Who knows, you may even decide to dabble in a modest overclock too.

Comon guys, Someone in this forum has to have the answers I am looking for

Any recommendations greatly appreciated

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You asked for recommendations so you got recommendations. As for your question whether they're worth it, YES, ram still is the most bang for the buck upgrade and going from pc2100 to pc3200 will give you a huge performance boost. I would just stick with 512x2 sticks as they provide good prices and good performance.

-1cem4n

I think the only unanswered questiom relates to Sandra and ECC. Don't bother with ECC as it slows everything down. Sandra has a bunch of useless tips, but also some good ones such as the Windows services to disable.

Thanks for the input guys. I picked up 1 GIG set of Corsair PC3200 XMS TwinX memory from newegg. I have not done a burn in yet but I did run 3DMark and increased my final score by 468 points.

I will try to update at a later time on what other changes this has made.

Glad you are happy with your selection. BTW what timings are you running them at now?

I'm currently running stock
CPU-Z shows my timings to be at 2-3-3-8

I am interested in doing some tweaking but I am not totally sure what to do as far as making changes. I have read the various guides but have yet to make any attempet at overclocking.

just go into your bios, and tweak your timings to 2-2-2-x

run tras at whatever is stable, not the lowest (no performance boost @tras5)

what chipset u got? nforce4? you should see if you can get yer ram to do 210. then, ,you'll have 2100mhz on the winchester, that'll give u a nice performance gain, and u probably won't even have to up any voltages.

MailOrderSausag said:

just go into your bios, and tweak your timings to 2-2-2-x

run tras at whatever is stable, not the lowest (no performance boost @tras5)

what chipset u got? nforce4? you should see if you can get yer ram to do 210. then, ,you'll have 2100mhz on the winchester, that'll give u a nice performance gain, and u probably won't even have to up any voltages.

Click to expand...

Make sure you run memtest86 if you change the RAM timings to test for stability and make sure everything is running smooth. If I remember correctly, 2-3-3-X is the stock timings for that RAM so they are not guarunteed to run any faster (although you would be likely to get 2-3-2-X timings out of them)