dumbest. question. ever.

And I don't know the answer (hmm... doesn't say a lot for me, does it). My brother runs a Shuttle nF2 board (AN35N), and is again complaining of the speed. Personally I think he's a hypochondriac, but heres his exact email:

Lex,

I was looking into upgrading my memory since I have noticed things slowing down on my computer when I got bumped down to 512 [from 1024, which the bum sold]. My bus is 333 on this mother board, does that mean that if I were to get a PC 3200, where the memory frequency is 400, that I would not be able to take advantage of the extra 77 hertz?

Also, could I put in say PC 3200 and have PC2100 at the same time or would it affect the speeds?
Thanks,
Nick

Right now he's running generic 2100, but the AN35N should support up to DDR5000, right? And will extra (goodness expensive) ram make any differences?

Thanks, all,
lex

DDR5000? That's awful fast.

The AN35N (I'm pretty sure that's the NForce2 Ultra400 one) *officially* supports up to DDR400. It may overclock past there. However, unless he has a 400Mhz Barton (3000+ or 3200+), you'll have to overclock the CPU to get to even 400Mhz (the 2500+ and higher Bartons run at 333, the older XPs run at 266).

Mixing memory speeds will constrain you to the speed of the slower module, so adding PC3200 to his PC2100 will not help you.

The more expensive RAM will usually run with tighter internal timings, which gives you a few extra percent worth of performance.

However, I'm not sure that his problems are coming from having "only" 512MB of memory -- the difference between 512MB and 1024MB is not huge, in my experience. What applications is he seeing the performance hit with? And has he checked for viruses, adware/spyware, etc.? Has he recently defragmented his HDD?

He currently has 512, but is it one or two sticks? That board has a dual channel memory system. Using one stick has considerably less memory bandwidth as having two. That could slow down the system (I don't know that it would really slow it so far that he'd really notice it...). Of course, it could be related to other issues too (an out of control page file, temporary files, virus, etc...).

Ah, see, my feeling exactly: I went from 1024 to 512 with virtually no difference (thought it was from 4x256 Crutial 2100 to 2x256 Buffalo 3200). However I can see why he'd want to go with faster ram, seeing as he just upgraded to this new board & a 2500+ not three months past.

As for what he's seeing a decrease in performance in, I couldn't say. It's probably attributed to his never defragmenting, though, and generally poor HD usage; I keep telling him to get a Raptor for XP but he won't bite.

So, some 3200 ought to do him? Can anyone recommend an expensi- uh, good, rather, set of ram (like that Mushkin "Level 2" stuff) that might do? He of course won't be using it to its full potential, but at some point if he upgrades, and just as a placebo too.

Oh, btw, he's using 2x256 & 'Dual Channel', but I always thought the performance increase was pretty pitiful?

Anyhow! Thanks, guys, I really appreciate it

Newegg.com has:

KINGSTON HyperX Series 184-pin 1GB Kit (2x 512MB) DDR370 (PC3000) DDR RAM modules, Model# KHX3000K2/1G (which has the BH-5 chips) Specifications:
Type: Kingston HyperX
Capacity: 1GB (2x 512MB)
Speed: DDR 370 (PC 3000)
Latency: CAS Latency 2 (2-2-2-6-1T)

for $200. Not a bad price, especially if he is not going to overclock. If he doesn't overclock, he won't need anything faster (he might not anyway) as the stock speed of this RAM is faster than the 2500+ stock fsb.

He's apparently not too good at arithmetic, either. It's 67hz, not 77.