1gb sdr ram vs. 512mb (or even 256mb) ddr ram

[thiscloud]

hello,

i am thinking of buying an ecs k75sa (w/new antec case and athlon xp 1700+ thoroughbred) to help bring my OLD celeron 366mhz w/256mb pc100 ram TO the bronze age (as opposed to the stone age). i'm upgrading a little at a time, spending less than $200 for the aforementioned case/mb/cpu and transitioning ram, hd, cd, pci video card, etc to the new system.

thereafter, i'd like to spend just around $100 a month upgrading this puppy. my first purchase would probably be a new hd (wd 80gb special edition for $115 at newegg.com). but the second purchase would probably be ram.

(now the long intro is over, here's my actual quandary...)

i can get 1gb of pc133 sdr ram for $102 (kingston valueram 512mb x 2). or i can get ddr ram (the k7s5a supports two dimms of each type, not simultaneously). i can't find any benchmarks or evaluations saying what's better, a large amount of sdr ram or a smaller amount of ddr ram.

if i try to keep to my ~$100/month budget, i'd only be able to afford one piece of 256mb ddr ram (say a NICE corsair xms pc3200 c2, even though the mb only supports up to pc2100, just in case i upgrade the motherboard later, which i definitely plan to do, not for a while, but since the ram's got a lifetime warranty, what the heck!), or i can splurge and get a single 512mb pc3200 c2 for around $200.

the question is, what's got the most bang for the buck: 1024mb pc133 sdr ram vs. 256mb OR 512mb ddr pc3200 ram, keeping in mind that i get 4x the amound of sdr ram for the same price as the 256mb ddr ram or twice as much sd ram for half the price of the 512mb ddr ram.

whew! any opinions?

 

[amdskip]

DDR is obviously much faster than PC133. Go the DDR route for sure. If this is a desktop maching, anything over 512 is overkill whether it's DDR or PC133. Servers are the only other machines that need more memory.

 

[OS]

Just a suggestion, also consider the shuttle AK32A vs the ECS K7S5A, it has a very similar feature set and it doesn't have the controversial nature of the ECS board. The price is about the same, do a search on pricewatch.

As for your original question, the answer is of course it depends. Check your ram usage during a intensive time and see if it'll fit into 512 megs.

 

[jfall]

One thing you really should take into consideration is that the ECS board has a very hard time staying stable when you use 2 sticks of SDRAM.. read the ECS forums on ocworkbench.com, pretty much everyone will agree.. I would definitely not recommend that you go spend the money on two sticks of SDRAM and put them in this board.. the odds are against you. DDR ram is suppose to work a heck of a lot better with this board.

Also, another thing you should know is that the ECS board is very picky with power supplies, DO NOT put a cheap power supply in it.. get a good quality power supply such as an Enermax. Cheap underrated power supplies cause all sorts of problems with these boards. Do not skimp on it.

I'd start off with 256 of ddr ram.. it should be enough for a while, concentrate on getting the rest of your computer up to par and then add a second stick of ddr ram.. by that time it should be a lot cheaper. You should be fine on 256mb of ddr ram for almost anything. Keep in mind, don't use cheap ram (sdram or DDR) with the ECS board.. you'll regret it.

I know by now you must think that the ECS board is pretty bad.. but it's really not that bad at all.. it is just more picky then other boards.. can't beat the price though. Just make sure you run it with a good quality power supply and quality memory and the board will be rock solid.

What are you planning on doing with your computer that you'd need 1gig of ram for anyways?? I'd say you'd be perfectly happy with 512, or even 256 of DDR. Also, if you plan on upgrading your board along down the road... then 1gig of Sdram will definitely not be any good for you.. the ECS supports both kinds, but I don't think many other board does, or at least won't in time. At least your DDR will be good to migrate to another board.

 

[FearOrLove]

If you needed more than 256megs of ram chances are you would know it. But since your asking the question your probably better off getting the ddr.

We would be able to provide better advice if you told us what types of software you plan on running. (games, media editing, mp3 compression, etc)

 

[Bovinicus]

I know this is going to sound hard, but I would suggest trying to save all of that money until you can purchase all of the components at once. It is always a good idea to do that unless the other upgrades are a really long ways off. This way the prices of hardware, in general, will drop by the time you make the purchase and you can save money, buy faster hardware, or do a little of both.

 

[FuManStan]

I have no problems running 2 sticks of SDRAM (256 each for 512) on my K7S5A, and if you look at the latest thread on ocworkbench about the same topic, many people say it works just fine for them. As for more SDRAM vs. less DDR, i think 512 of either is all you need, although i find it hard to justify buying new SDRAM unless its absolutely dirt cheap. I'm using SDRAM only because i have a ton of it left over from past computers and couldnt justify spending 150 dollars for 512mb of DDR. Buying DDR333 or 400 will ensure that you can use it later on with future upgrades, while if you buy SDRAM now you're pretty much stuck buying new ram again in the future. As for performance, DDR is a nice performance boost, but that said running SDRAM won't exactly be terrible either. It really depends on the applications you run as to whether more ram or faster ram would be better.

 

[buleyb]

Waiting is a plus....I'll jump on that bandwagon...


Also, if you are really considering the SDRAM over DDR, there is no need for 1GB of it. doubling the amount of slow RAM won't make up for the lack of faster chips.

Also, the Kingston valueram is a problem waiting to happen. Crucial would be a much better option...

I am inclined to agree with the earlier posts, DDR is a better solution all around, especially if you are pulling as many years out of this as you got from your last system...

 

[thiscloud]

wow you guys are quick! i posted this to sudian.com and tomshardware.com and hadn't gotten a single response on either...

What are you planning on doing with your computer that you'd need 1gig of ram for anyways?? I'd say you'd be perfectly happy with 512, or even 256 of DDR. Also, if you plan on upgrading your board along down the road... then 1gig of Sdram will definitely not be any good for you.. the ECS supports both kinds, but I don't think many other board does, or at least won't in time. At least your DDR will be good to migrate to another board.

jfall, i probably don't NEED 1gb of ram, but i want to avoid as much as possible the use of virtual memory. my current system chokes when i open multiple ie/netscape windows, adobe photoshop, windows media player, and more. i agree with your point that the ddr ram can go to a new board, and i thought about that a lot.

I know this is going to sound hard, but I would suggest trying to save all of that money until you can purchase all of the components at once. It is always a good idea to do that unless the other upgrades are a really long ways off. This way the prices of hardware, in general, will drop by the time you make the purchase and you can save money, buy faster hardware, or do a little of both.

bovinicus, while i agree with you that getting all the components at once would be best, i can't afford to do that. perhaps, since the sdr ram would be useless when i move to a new board, i'll get just one 512mb pc133 ram for $50 which would already be a dramatic upgrade from my 2x128mb pc100 memory and wait until i had enough money to buy a single 512mb ddr ram down the road.

the components i've chosen have been pretty price stable for the past several months that i've been thinking about upgrading. i'm not going for top of the line stuff, so if i spread out my purchases, the prices of the components can only go down (or disappear) and i'd save money in the long run as well as not having to have all the money upfront (trying not to use them credit cards).

If you needed more than 256megs of ram chances are you would know it. But since your asking the question your probably better off getting the ddr.

fearorlove, i know i definitely need more than 256mb sdr ram because of the way my current computer runs (yes, the celeron 366 has a lot to do with the performance as well, but i like to keep lots of apps open at the same time so ram is definitely a big factor). my question was more to find out how much of a performance increase would replacing 256mb sdr ram with the same amount of ddr ram be? would the ddr performance increase be better than double the amount of sdr ram (for half the price) or quadruple the amound of sdr ram (for the same price as the ddr)?

 

[RSMemphis]

Here's another tidbit for you - if you don't game and don't do video editing, most of the time DDR is not that important. You don't need that much bandwidth in that case. In such a case, just HAVING a lot of memory is the importance.
For example: a fully loaded IDE with compiler DOES require a lot of RAM, but does not access a lot of it at the same time, hence SDR is plentiful.
Video-editing and gaming, however, requires a large throughput, and you are better off with DDR.

 

[thiscloud]

Here's another tidbit for you - if you don't game and don't do video editing, most of the time DDR is not that important. You don't need that much bandwidth in that case. In such a case, just HAVING a lot of memory is the importance. For example: a fully loaded IDE with compiler DOES require a lot of RAM, but does not access a lot of it at the same time, hence SDR is plentiful.
Video-editing and gaming, however, requires a large throughput, and you are better off with DDR.

rsmemphis, that's good info. i don't do a lot of video-editing, but i do use photoshop alot, and i run filters that take forever on my current system. i believe (but could be wrong) that it's ram intensive, and sdr probably works just fine for that application.

i do game, but i don't plan on playing the latest unreal tournament or quake. the most graphically intense game i'd play on it would be neverwinter nights. otherwise, it's pretty low requirement stuff like the sims, warcraft 3, etc.

i think for the price/performance, in the immediate future i'll get the 512mb pc133 sdr ram to start, since it's only $50 and then when i have enough money i'll replace it with 512mb pc3200 ddr which i can carry over to another mb later. i would like to just stick to one stick of memory, so i'll save up for one 512mb ddr instead of two 256mb ddr sticks.

 

[glugglug]

For most normal user applications, even including video editing, 512MB is plenty, and the 512MB DDR will be faster.

If you run some virtual machines, or maybe a large SQL server, or do high-res photo editing (note, counterintuitively, detailed photo editing requires more memory than video...), or other extremely memory intensive application, then you might be better off with the 1GB SDRAM.

DO NOT go with the 256MB, if you use Win2K or WinXP, you will notice the difference between 256 and 512 for almost any application except maybe word processing.

 

[Bovinicus]

bovinicus, while i agree with you that getting all the components at once would be best, i can't afford to do that. perhaps, since the sdr ram would be useless when i move to a new board, i'll get just one 512mb pc133 ram for $50 which would already be a dramatic upgrade from my 2x128mb pc100 memory and wait until i had enough money to buy a single 512mb ddr ram down the road.

I do understand this. However, while I'm posting, I might as well offer my .02 on the DDR vs. SDR debate. 512MB is plenty. I have never run out of memory with 512MB. Sometimes I am careless and leave several windows open even while I game. I don't even know if I have ever cracked 400MB of usage. I would just buy one stick of 512MB DDR333 and leave it at that. You won't have to worry about excessive pagefile use. Furthermore, if you are running an NT based OS, then you can tweak it to use a lot less memory. I am currently running Windows 2000. I have disabled a large amount of the services that were set to automatic when I initially installed the OS. It saves mucho memory, although I don't need to. I am just a tweak freak. A quick search on google for something like "windows 2000 tweak services" should provide you with the proper information.

 

[HokieESM]

Just to reiterate what others have said (and to add some of my personal experience): Definitely go with 256 MB (or if you can afford it, 512 MB) of DDR. MOST applications that you use (even if you're using them in parallel) use relatively small amounts of RAM at a time, then clear it out, and reuse it. Therefore, bandwidth is the dominating factor (and DDR has, gasp, double the bandwidth of SDRAM). There are VERY few applications that you are going to NEED more than 512MB of RAM.... so going DDR is a no-brainer.

There are some caveats. If you're going to use this computer as a file server or for any computational work, the SDRAM might be a better buy. With a lot of the computational work that I do, the sheer amount of RAM becomes the dominating factor--believe it or not, my P3 1.13 with 4GB of SDRAM will trounce my P4 2.26 with 1.5GB of PC1066 when doing finite element calculations. But for word processing, browsing, or even playing games, memory bandwidth is the key--that's why we see PC1066 (and now, dual DDR solutions like Granite Bay) outperforming DDR and SDRAM solutions for the P4.

DDR also offers somewhat of a better upgrade path--but this is probably moot, because in a year, we'll probably all be running DDRII. <grin>

 

[thiscloud]

DDR also offers somewhat of a better upgrade path--but this is probably moot, because in a year, we'll probably all be running DDRII. <grin>

hokieesm, isn't ddrii just dual channel ddr support on the mb? in other words, can't i use the same ddr sticks i buy today to use in ddrii boards in the future? or are ddrii and dualddr (whatever the nforce boards have) two different things?

 

[Bovinicus]

or are ddrii and dualddr (whatever the nforce boards have) two different things?

DDR2 is an entirely different kind of memory. The architecture is completely different. It is made to acheive higher clockspeeds. As well, I have heard that it is quad data rate, but I could be wrong on that one.

 

[thiscloud]

DDR2 is an entirely different kind of memory. The architecture is completely different. It is made to acheive higher clockspeeds. As well, I have heard that it is quad data rate, but I could be wrong on that one.

bovinicus, thanks! the names are similar so i got them mixed. they should call ddrii qdr if it indeed supports quad data rates or something else.

 

[FearOrLove]

Quote:
fearorlove, i know i definitely need more than 256mb sdr ram because of the way my current computer runs (yes, the celeron 366 has a lot to do with the performance as well, but i like to keep lots of apps open at the same time so ram is definitely a big factor). my question was more to find out how much of a performance increase would replacing 256mb sdr ram with the same amount of ddr ram be? would the ddr performance increase be better than double the amount of sdr ram (for half the price) or quadruple the amound of sdr ram (for the same price as the ddr)?

If you are aware of the amount of time your system spends swapping then you should be able to figure out for yourself which situation would benifit to you the most. The reason you can't find any info regarding more ram vs. faster ram is that it could easily go either way depending on how the system is used. Based on this statment "my current system chokes when i open multiple ie/netscape windows, adobe photoshop, windows media player, and more." I would think that you will spend less time waiting for your computer if you get 512megs of whatever type of ram. I doubt getting more would make much difference unless you edit extremely large images in photoshop. Unfortunatly it sounds like your current motherboard will be upgraded failry soon and the board you want will most likely only take ddr. If I were you I would probably hold out until I could afford 512megs of ddr.

 

[CraigRT]

DDR for sure. PC133 is outdated now.