So whos the winner here?

P

Phippsp

New Member
Say someone has 2gb made up of 2 1gb DDR PC3200 400mz RAM on a Asus mobo.
Say someone else has 3gb made up of 6 512 PC2-3200 DDR2-400 on a gigabyte mobo i danno if mobo matter i just put it there just incase.

Now who is the winner? And is there a whole lot of difference between the two? By how much better is it?
 
...impossible to answer really.

Whoever you are arguing with i would say tell them it means NOTHING lol. having over 1GB of RAM is absolutely worthless unless you are running a high-traffic server or numbercrunching system, in a very demanding environment. Having moore than 1GB in ANY game out now is next to pointless, and having 2-3GB can actually SLOW DOWN your computer if it's not all being used. It can be a dead-weight on your bandwidth and if you still have a PageFile it is even slower (although some programs juust HAVE to have at least 5mb PF for some reason).

The only way to REALLY tell which is faster is to do a bandwidth test. Run Sandra or some progrma that wil test your bandwidth and see who's gets a higher score. NOTE winning by 50-100 points means next to nothing...you have to win by a LANDSLIDE to even really notice a difference between 2 & 3GB of RAM.

I imagine a correctly tuned 1GB RAM on a decent computer will beat the same computer with 2 or 3GB or RAM in all games. They simply do not use that much RAM. Video editing, multi-media apps. might take advantage of 2GB+, or a file server or something, but for the average extreme gaming computer 1GB is plenty fast enough and shouldn't have ANY problems running smooth/fast.

Also note that your CPU is going to bottleneck before your 3GB of RAM will unless it is pretty fast. Running a slow processor with 3GB of RAM vs. a faster processor with 512MB of RAM isn't a very good comparison. I bet the fast 512MB would win in any case...
 
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4W4K3 you analyze things too much :)
looking closer at what was originally posted, the 3GB is DDR2 400 and the 2GB is DDR400. Being DDR2 its pretty much guranteed to have slower timings (CAS3 at best) while the DDR400 is probably 2 or 2.5 there by making it faster (ok 2-10%, depending on cas2/2.5, but the speed advantage still there :P).
And is there a whole lot of difference between the two?
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there is lots of difference between the two, mainly one is ddr2 while the other is ddr. DDR2 is 240pin 1.8v, while ddr is 184pin 2.5v.
 
Cromewell said:
4W4K3 you analyze things too much :)
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damnit you are right! i didn't even see that 2 behind the DDR lmao.

i would have to then think the DDR2 would be the winner (bear with me lol). Only because the mobos that can take DDR2 usually take very powerful CPU's, while he could be running a very slow AXP 2000+ on the DDR. So, just with a gut feeling, i think the 3GB would be faster. NOT because of the RAM, but because of the rest of the hardware. I could very well be wrong though...
 
Phippsp said:
Aha but it will be a AMD 3500 against a Pentium somethingi forget lol
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well depending on the Pentium # it's an easy comparison i bet. If its only like a P4 2.6GHz the 3500+ should win easily. If it's likke an LGA775 Intel or an P4EE model the Intel might win...just have to test it.
 
no chance, with the intel running DDR2, the memory latency will be astronomical compared to the a64 3500+ and at the same speed (400) the DDR2 will be slower everytime. it is an LGA model pentium, no others take DDR2
 
Whoever you are arguing with i would say tell them it means NOTHING lol. having over 1GB of RAM is absolutely worthless unless you are running a high-traffic server or numbercrunching system
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Not entirely true ;-).. I know first hand that adding 512 mb's to a system does indeed enhance it even though the speed of the ram drops by half... for an example when I run half life 2 and exit my computer seems slow for about a minute as though it's low on memory(1gb) after adding 512mb more (1.5gb's) it's snaps out of half life 2 and runs as though no game had ever been running. Adding over 1gb in my system in this case did make a difference... I'd also like to mention that although slowing down the memory to 1/2 speed I cannot see the diff in speed and I game alot.

This is just one reason why i'll argue that duel channel does not matter alot with the athlon 64's and wether is a 939SKT or 754 I dont believe the difference is really large enough to notice.
 
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...impossible to answer really
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Not really ... since this is a DDR2 situation ... DDR2 is all about bandwidth ... running 3GB means you're running single channel ....

Whoever you are arguing with I would say tell them it means NOTHING lol. having over 1GB of RAM is absolutely worthless unless you are running a high-traffic server or numbercrunching system
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Ok what happens if I am running a server?

I know first hand that adding 512 mb's to a system does indeed enhance it even though the speed of the ram drops by half...
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Excuse me?
 
Excuse me?
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what part did you not understand?

I was saying that adding another 512mb's of ram on top of 1024mb's does inhance a pc and I was simply saying that I know this first hand as I upgraded from 1gb to 1.5gbs and my pc runs smoother after exiting the game half life 2... I also mentioned that by adding the 3'rd stick (512mb) It decreased the ram speed by half... Also this was all mentioned because 4W4K3 mentioned that you would not notice anything above 1gb of ram in a system and I just wanted to point out that I do not feel that to be entirely true although it is for the most part.
 
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Praetor said:
Not really ... since this is a DDR2 situation ... DDR2 is all about bandwidth ... running 3GB means you're running single channel ....
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understood, i said what you quoted b4 i realized it was DDR2
 though. i gotta read better:)

Praetor said:
Ok what happens if I am running a server?
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Generally a server that is getting used alot in a high-traffic environment has to have 1GB of RAM or more, so more than likely 2GB will run better despite the loose timings or loss of dual channel. It will benefit more from not bottlenecking in RAM by having more of it, stead of having half of what it needs with small speed boosts that timings might have or DC might provide. It's differennt for every machine and environment as i'm sure you know...that's why i said it's better to test it and figure it out first hand than ask anyone online.

Also this was all mentioned because 4W4K3 mentioned that you would not notice anything above 1gb of ram in a system and I just wanted to point out that I do not feel that to be entirely true although it is for the most part.
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well i almost sid that:) i said for a "gaming computer" more than 1GB of RAM isn't needed, games out now shouldn't provide ANY speed boost going from 1GB to 2GB or even 1.5GB. Server's can benefit from massive amounts of RAM, because most servers just need large amounts of RAM to get the job done, they benefit more from it than a smaller amount of RAM that is just tweakedi in timings (what most gamers do).
 
what part did you not understand?
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That you meant the specific case where you'd be interrupting a dual-channel configuration. Regardless, the overall bandwidth may be dropped in half (or it may double as well, or do nothing), but the actual clock speed wont change (unless you're maxing out the DIMMS than that's a possibility)

Generally a server that is getting used alot in a high-traffic environment has to have 1GB of RAM or more, so more than likely 2GB will run better despite the loose timings or loss of dual channel. It will benefit more from not bottlenecking in RAM by having more of it, stead of having half of what it needs with small speed boosts that timings might have or DC might provide. It's differennt for every machine and environment as i'm sure you know...that's why I said it's better to test it and figure it out first hand than ask anyone online.
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Hehe it was a hypothetical question :P Just poking at the wording of

having over 1GB of RAM is absolutely worthless unless you are running a high-traffic server or numbercrunching system
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That you meant the specific case where you'd be interrupting a dual-channel configuration. Regardless, the overall bandwidth may be dropped in half (or it may double as well, or do nothing), but the actual clock speed wont change (unless you're maxing out the DIMMS than that's a possibility)
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ah yes :-) got ya.. Yes I'm maxing out the boards limit sadly and it dropped from 400mhz to 200mhz yet I do not notice the speed drop whatsoever but it did increase overal pc performance and I do alot of gaming as well as photo editing and web design.

The board is a 3gb (1gb per slot) board and i've put in 3 512 mb sticks.
 
well i almost sid that i said for a "gaming computer" more than 1GB of RAM isn't needed
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suppose I should comment here ;-).. You are entirely correct but you did not need me to point that out now did you :-). But overall performance such as when one leaves those games then perhaps onother stick would not hurt but there's really no software that the average daily user would be using (games, etc.) that would require more then 1gb of ram to run as 4W4K3 has said already "gameing computer".

My pc was acting poorly after leaving the game Half Life 2 and all was fine after installing another stick... I noticed the symptons from when I was running 512mbs of ram and my pc (older pc) would run poorly after leaving most games that I was playing but putting 1gb fixed that prob. and now 1.5gb because half life 2 did the same thing with 1gb... Although I did not check for mem leak and I hate to have to shut down running processes everytime i run a game and I like to leave norton and firewalls and everything running and I still expect a smooth running pc LOL..
 
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Yes I'm maxing out the boards limit sadly and it dropped from 400mhz to 200mhz yet
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Your memory doesnt work at 400MHz and never did. Some motherboards automatically drop you from 200MHz to 166 when you max out the slots
 
Your memory doesnt work at 400MHz and never did.
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Is there any reason why it said that It did during post then? and now it says 200mhz..

I'm only asking as so I could understand this situation a bit better because durring post it definatly said 400mhz and now reads 200mhz.
 
Praetor said:
Hehe it was a hypothetical question :P Just poking at the wording of
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lol im so out of it, my internet is off 80% of the time due to my dad. so when i get 15mins to get on i speed read and i can't take in the actual meaning of things. i'm gonna have to cut back on the thread subscriotions lmao.
 
Like 4W4K3 said, unless your running lots of programs (ex 50 different premiere pro projects) you wont see a difference, although i would say the 2x 1GB DDR would be better since in the future it would be easier to upgrade then having 6x 512MB
 
Is there any reason why it said that It did during post then? and now it says 200mhz..
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Normally I would say something like "by running 3GB you forfeit dual channel" but since you dont have dual channel to start with that point goes out the window. As for the clock speed, I cant explain it but dont always trust what the bootup sequence tells you. Believe me if you have 400Mhz (which would be DDR800 -- which doesnt exist), you'd know it. Seems like just a typo they made when writing up the BIOS

easier to upgrade then having 6x 512MB
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6? You mean 4? :confused:
 
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