2gigs DDR2 or 4gigs DDR3?

[riptol337]

I built my PC around 3 or so years ago, with the following:

Gigabyte PA-P35C-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.6ghz
2 gigs of 1066mhz DDR2 Corsair Dominator

I recently purchased 4 gigs of 1066mhz DDR3, my question is, how do I know if I'm getting any advantages of my ram upgrade? Things like 3DMark06 focus more on graphics and CPU right? My 3DMark06 numbers are actually less with the DDR3. I was running the DDR2 at 5-5-5-15, and the DDR3 is running at 7-7-7-20.

 

[janas19]

I built my PC around 3 or so years ago, with the following:

Gigabyte PA-P35C-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.6ghz
2 gigs of 1066mhz DDR2 Corsair Dominator

I recently purchased 4 gigs of 1066mhz DDR3, my question is, how do I know if I'm getting any advantages of my ram upgrade? Things like 3DMark06 focus more on graphics and CPU right? My 3DMark06 numbers are actually less with the DDR3. I was running the DDR2 at 5-5-5-15, and the DDR3 is running at 7-7-7-20.

What percent difference in the numbers are we talking about here? Very low latency RAM usually gets higher numbers in synthetic benchmarks, but most people can't tell the difference in real world performance.

 

[Blain]

...my question is, how do I know if I'm getting any advantages of my ram upgrade?

Blind Faith

 

[riptol337]

The difference in numbers was very small, like 100-200 from 10700 to about 10900 in 3DMark06. I just ran 3DMark06 three times with the DDR3 and I got just about the same all three times, around 10900. I tried to put the old ram back in and the computer wouldn't even boot. I knew I shouldn't have even attempted to change out any hardware especially considering since now I'm in a worse spot than I was two days ago. The CPU won't even hold an overclock now of 1 MHz and it was running at 3.2 from stock 2.6ghz for 1 year.

 

[Kristijonas]

I hate mixing new HW with old HW. Do you want to see your girlfriend with some old fart? No. Then don't do this either.

 

[janas19]

The difference in numbers was very small, like 100-200 from 10700 to about 10900 in 3DMark06. I just ran 3DMark06 three times with the DDR3 and I got just about the same all three times, around 10900. I tried to put the old ram back in and the computer wouldn't even boot. I knew I shouldn't have even attempted to change out any hardware especially considering since now I'm in a worse spot than I was two days ago. The CPU won't even hold an overclock now of 1 MHz and it was running at 3.2 from stock 2.6ghz for 1 year.

If your motherboard runs DDR3, why would you even bother with DDR2? I'm not sure I understand the problem here.

 

[Spikesoldier]

ddr3 is going to be better now for the following reasons:

larger capacity
cheaper price
less paging to disk

i would take a hit of a few ns of latency for the higher capacity any day. especially now when 2gb really isnt cutting it anymore.

 

[riptol337]

If your motherboard runs DDR3, why would you even bother with DDR2? I'm not sure I understand the problem here.

I ran DDR2 because when I built the comp several years ago it was much cheaper. I chose the motherboard I did because I figured I could upgrade in the future.

 

[riptol337]

ddr3 is going to be better now for the following reasons:

larger capacity
cheaper price
less paging to disk

i would take a hit of a few ns of latency for the higher capacity any day. especially now when 2gb really isnt cutting it anymore.

Yeah it would just be nice to have solid evidence that I'm actually getting better performance.

 

[infoiltrator]

You are, windows uses all GB available, going from 2 to 4 will help.
In realworld your motherboard (I think the memory controler is on the motherboard for a p35??) may not take advantage of better performance.
Also Speed/Latency are NOT directly comparable between DDR2 and DDR3.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Games are taking full advantage of up to 4GB of RAM now so I would not use 2GB at this point.

RAM speed is insignificant for gaming as long as you arn't using some sort of integrated card.

 

[riptol337]

Thanks for the reassurance guys. I think I'll keep the DDR3. Now to figure out this problem...

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2215230