Ram Differences, Need Help Please. : )
Okay, I'm an old jerk when it comes to RAM, I remember the days of buying RAM by latency back in the joyful days after Parity. 80ns vs 60ns and all that.
I'm still a bit baffled by what CAS latencies will do for me, and what results I'll get for my money.
I've got another thread going in this forum , you can grab more details there, but I'll summarize here.
I'm currently running my new 4400+ on a A8N-SLI Premium, with one stick of Kingston Hyper-X PC4000 RAM (512MB), I picked it up for $100 after rebate at Best Buy over a year ago. As far as I can tell, what CPU-Z tells me anyway, is that it's 3-3-3-8 latency RAM. Now, going with what I know about DDR SDRAM, there's data sent on both sides of the clock cycle. So, CAS 2 RAM, which is the best I've seen, would be able to serve data one clock-cycle after the data request was recieved (which I think it's as optimal as this can get)
So, my Hyper-X has to wait a cycle & a half, or three sending intervals, until it's guarenteed to have the data fetched.
Well, I can't consider a new computer complete until it's got at least a gig of ram in it.
So, which would I be better served by, is the primary question I guess...
ZipZoomFly has a Gig set of Corsair ValueRAM, which is CAS 2.5 (2.5-4-4-8, I think) for only $87, shipped. I could probably justify buying two gigs of this, and fill up all of my banks in my motherboard.
NewEgg has OCZ Ram, two sets that caught my eye.
A gig set of Gold Series, clocked at 2-2-2-5, for $140
A gig set of Plat Series, clocked at 2-2-2-5 (and actually seems to be recognized as such by the motherboard right away) for $170.
Now, while the OCZ Platinum seems like a really good set of chips, at a pretty resonable price (fark, I remember when a meg of RAM came in a plastic tube, or 4 meg SIMMs cost $400+), I can buy two sets of the Corsair ValueRAM for almost the same price.
Bigger is better, but so is faster, but so is cheaper.
This leaves me asking S-M (aptly named given the joy of setting up my machine last night, see the other thread 
) about my RAM choice. I think I'll be better served by having two gig of RAM, but how much will the nearly double latency times affect me? Will it all balance out with two banks of dual channel filled?
Insights please. : )
I'm still a bit baffled by what CAS latencies will do for me, and what results I'll get for my money.
I've got another thread going in this forum , you can grab more details there, but I'll summarize here.
I'm currently running my new 4400+ on a A8N-SLI Premium, with one stick of Kingston Hyper-X PC4000 RAM (512MB), I picked it up for $100 after rebate at Best Buy over a year ago. As far as I can tell, what CPU-Z tells me anyway, is that it's 3-3-3-8 latency RAM. Now, going with what I know about DDR SDRAM, there's data sent on both sides of the clock cycle. So, CAS 2 RAM, which is the best I've seen, would be able to serve data one clock-cycle after the data request was recieved (which I think it's as optimal as this can get)
So, my Hyper-X has to wait a cycle & a half, or three sending intervals, until it's guarenteed to have the data fetched.
Well, I can't consider a new computer complete until it's got at least a gig of ram in it.
So, which would I be better served by, is the primary question I guess...
ZipZoomFly has a Gig set of Corsair ValueRAM, which is CAS 2.5 (2.5-4-4-8, I think) for only $87, shipped. I could probably justify buying two gigs of this, and fill up all of my banks in my motherboard.
NewEgg has OCZ Ram, two sets that caught my eye.
A gig set of Gold Series, clocked at 2-2-2-5, for $140
A gig set of Plat Series, clocked at 2-2-2-5 (and actually seems to be recognized as such by the motherboard right away) for $170.
Now, while the OCZ Platinum seems like a really good set of chips, at a pretty resonable price (fark, I remember when a meg of RAM came in a plastic tube, or 4 meg SIMMs cost $400+), I can buy two sets of the Corsair ValueRAM for almost the same price.
Bigger is better, but so is faster, but so is cheaper.
This leaves me asking S-M (aptly named given the joy of setting up my machine last night, see the other thread ) about my RAM choice. I think I'll be better served by having two gig of RAM, but how much will the nearly double latency times affect me? Will it all balance out with two banks of dual channel filled?Insights please. : )
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OTOH, IF you plan on not keeping what you have in your computer, you might get 2 GIG of Corsair, which is what I run here. OCZ has proven unstable on some motherboards (those who think not, Google 'OCZ +unstable' please), and is for overclockers.
Hint:
Speed first, after the PC, then match the other parms exactly for DDR in Dual Channel use.
So, the 2GB of RAM is sounding really really tempting.
The Latency of the Corsair is still "good enough" for my purposes (this isn't a mission-critical server, it's a home gaming box, so I can game like mad, and system calls can just happily run along & frolic on the other processor core, instead of bringing my processor to it's knees.
I don't plan on Overclocking this machine anytime soon, and when I do, I'm probably making the jump into watercooling, so I think I can accept an extra cost for higher-test RAM then.
So, that's one vote for the Corsair ValueSelect?