Advantage of higher speed ram .. ie 3200 over 2100

[Appledrop]

hi i have a very nice granite bay p4 motherboard, but it only "supports" pc1600 and pc2100 memory in Dual Channel. So atm im using matched crucial 256 2100 cas 2.5 modules. I realise this is making my overclock (not stable past 165 fsb), fail. So, if i got 2 sticks of pc3500 (i think it sounds much more 1337 than 3200 ) of ram, ...

As i see it i would not be losing out, because my p4 only needs 4200 gb bandwidth, and pc2100 in DC provides that.. BUT i would be pushing my ability to overclock greatly, imo..
thats unless there are other benefits of faster memory than bandwidth..

IS memory bandwidth the only advantage of higher rated memory..??

ta

 

[Appledrop]

bump plz?

 

[Algere]

With higher rated memory you can also run them @ slower speed with lower timings e.g. Cas 2.5 @ PC3200 = Cas 2.0 @ PC2700.

 

[Appledrop]

but what im getting at does SPEED= bandwidth? because if so its pretty misleading, because bandwidth doesnt really mean SPEED.. if you understand me..

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Azzy64
bump plz?

dont bump your post 17 minutes after you start it PLZ.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Azzy64
but what im getting at does SPEED= bandwidth? because if so its pretty misleading, because bandwidth doesnt really mean SPEED.. if you understand me..

I'd say bandwidth is normally a pretty good measure of the speed at which you can transfer data in and out of the RAM (which is, after all, what you do with memory).

It's true, though, that the *latency* of the memory (for nonsequential accesses) is a function of both the frequency and the timings (CL2,2.5,3, etc.) But no matter how you look at it, CL3 PC3200 is "faster" than CL3 PC2100. But CL3 PC3200 (~7.5ns cycle time) is actually slower (in terms of single-access latency) than CL2 PC2700 (~6ns cycle time), if that's what you're getting at. But for most real-world applications, the higher overall bandwidth of the PC3200 would make it perform slightly better, as it is significantly faster for transferring anything more than a few words of data at a time.

 

[Appledrop]

wow thanks, now i really want some high speed ram.. to hit 3gig on my 2.26

 

[Spikesoldier]

i would think that the chipset wouldnt be able to do more than that.

ymmv though. if you need to buy new ram to do it, dont. but if you have it lying around, go ahead and try it. i also believe that that crucial pc2100 can go pretty far too given the right voltage and loosening timings.