amd and ddr2

[livingsacrifice]

Is there any amd processors that can use DDR2 besides the FX and whatever other socket AM2 processors. Im running a Opty 939 with asus a8n-e and I would love to run DDR2 would rather not have to go out and get another board, processor and ram. I'm running DDR533 right now. Would it be best to just upgrade it all?

 

[felang]

the type of ram used depends on the motherboard chipset. Socket 939 uses DDR. Socket AM2 uses DDR2. In order to use DDR2 you will need a new motherboard and an AM2 processor. It is not possible to just mix and match whatever components you want.

 

[bryanW1995]

what are you using your system for? gaming, web surfing, encoding, etc? What are your exact system specs right now (see my sig for example). Why do you want to upgrade? DDR 533 is pretty great memory actually. Are you bogging down a lot?

 

[livingsacrifice]

No not bogging down, I just want to play games again, I'll tell you my specs beyond that. It does slow down a bit in the new games trying to run them at 1680x1050 (native). 2gb Patriot ddr 533 (1gb x 2). I can't remember which Opty I have but it's got the 2mb l2 cache and I have it up to 2.6ghz right now, pretty sure it can do more than that. I think my major decline is the video card, its an Sapphire X850XT, I know I can probably get away with the X1000 series but DX10 is coming up so I find it pointless. I just know I tried to run Bioshock and yeah it didn't do too well. It just seems to me that AMD is just far behind compared to Intel right now, it seems that they can't keep up with the higher l2 cache and FSB speeds for gaming.

 

[qliveur]

If I were you I'd look into replacing that X850XT first, and then see if I could squeeze some more MHZ out of that Opty before going to the expense of replacing motherboard, CPU & RAM. While hardly bleeding edge, that Opty's probably still has some life left in it. That GPU's what's holding you back in gaming, IMO. IIRC, AM2/DDR2 wasn't much of a performance improvement over 939/DDR.

GPU first, then worry about CPU/chipset/RAM.

 

[livingsacrifice]

Should I go DX10 card though? I mean Crysis is on it's way in and other new games, X1950XT would be perfect if I could get away with DX9 for a while. For some reason I like ATI cards better now.

 

[Captante]

DX-10 is out now but you'll have to upgrade to Vista in order to use it .... you'll be able to play Crysis & almost certainly all new games for at least the next year or two using a DX-9 card under XP but aside from the price theres no downside to going with a DX-10 card.

I would go with an 8800GTS or maybe a used X1900XT from FS/FT.

 

[livingsacrifice]

Yeah I know DX10 is Vista only. I was thinking about going Vista too though for the 64bit support (whenever more programs start to support it). Im used to using Server 2003 x64 enterprise at work and I notice a slight difference in the performance over our same machine running on the x32 version. The lack of over 3gb of ram supported in x32 does cause a problem for the future. I think I'll just go with the x1900xt from the forums and see where that takes me, I definately want to play the HalfLife Orange box that comes out next week but that is dx9 so I shouldn't have a problem.