ddr2 vs ddr3

A

andy_mitch92

New Member
ok so i got a book (upgrading and repairing pcs 18th edition) and it shows the clock speeds of ddr2 and ddr3 ram.
basically my question is it worth the extra cash to get the ddr3 ram witch is basically 2x as fast in transfer rates, or is it not worth it?

just a bit of info that you may not have known

ddr2-1.8 (voltage) 1066MT/s (max clock speed) 8533Mb/s (max throughput single-channel) 17066Mb/s (max throughput dual-channel)
ddr3-1.5 (voltage) 1600MT/s (max clock speed) 12800Mb/s (max throughput single-channel) 25600Mb/s (max throughput dual-channel)

Another question i have is because it is so much faster can i get away with less and still have the same performance as more of the ddr2 ram?
 
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DDR3 has faster clock speeds, however it's much slower in terms of latency. Right now it's not worth buying DDR2, however in the near future when they release faster speeds, lower latencies, and the prices come down, then it will be worth it.
 
well in the book it says that 2008 is when they are going to ramp up the specs of ddr3, and im not building a computer till 08 so... yeah
 
No, most important spec of RAM is capacity. Speed/bandwidth are great and all, they just don't contribute to the system as much as capacity will. Add to that that DDR3 is expensive, and so are the boards, i think, and it doesn't make much of a feasible option in my mind, least till it's the standard, and cheaper.

Edit: I type slow. XD
 
in the book (im going to say that from now on to make me sound intelligent) it says that you should have ram speed that matches your cpu socket speed which i think mine will be 1600 but im not sure about the 45nm core2quad chips, and it says this so that it will run as fast as possible.
 
Of course it will run as fast as possible, always a good thing, but what does this equate to? A relatively small performance boost, not much overall. And it's not just the latency problem, you might not actually notice a difference, say, if you were to go back and forth between the fastest ddr1 and the fastest ddr2, both being formats who have low latencies, but one with a higher speed.
 
I would personally go for the 4Gb's of pc6400, as long as I had a 64bit OS (otherwise the 2gb's of 1033). The speed of the RAM isn't the biggest performance factor, and unused RAM is even less useful, sure, but in a year or so 3gb's of RAM might help, as I've noticed that recent games are getting more RAM hungry, I've seen the witcher use 1.0-1.5 sometimes.

Pc6400 shouldn't bottleneck.

Edit: Eating Icecream makes one slow at typing.. 2x2gb's is best. RAM is always best two, dual channel plus it doesn't overload the address bus. I don't know whether more than two 2 DIMMs need to be ran at a 2t command rate, might be, who knows but Jehovah?!? Wait, Google might.
 
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andy_mitch92 said:
in the book (im going to say that from now on to make me sound intelligent) it says that you should have ram speed that matches your cpu socket speed which i think mine will be 1600 but im not sure about the 45nm core2quad chips, and it says this so that it will run as fast as possible.
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The most ideal situation is to have the FSB and RAM run in a 1:1 ratio. So according to that, if you are going to keep everything stock, the best RAM to use with a newer Core 2 Duo/Quad would be DDR2 667. (667/2 = 333) (1333/4 = 333). However if you overclock, then getting the faster RAM would allow you to continue to use a 1:1 ratio.
 
hermeslyre said:
I would personally go for the 4Gb's of pc6400, as long as I had a 64bit OS (otherwise the 2gb's of 1033). The speed of the RAM isn't the biggest performance factor, and unused RAM is even less useful, sure, but in a year or so 3gb's of RAM might help, as I've noticed that recent games are getting more RAM hungry, I've seen the witcher use 1.0-1.5 sometimes.

Pc6400 shouldn't bottleneck.
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Sorry, I deleted my post right before you made that one^

I decided to make a new thread about it, so I wouldn't hijack this one.
 
[-0MEGA-];811891 said:
Right now it's not worth buying DDR2, however in the near future when they release faster speeds, lower latencies, and the prices come down, then it will be worth it.
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I think he meant to say: " Right now it's not worth buying DDR3, however in the near future when they release faster speeds, lower latencies, and the prices come down, then it will be worth it."
 
2048Megabytes said:
I think he meant to say: " Right now it's not worth buying DDR3, however in the near future when they release faster speeds, lower latencies, and the prices come down, then it will be worth it."
Click to expand...

haha, yes, thanks for correcting me. I meant to say DDR3.
 
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