Any suggestion about memory upgrade?

[seriosha]

Hi to all ,
I've got a ABIT KV7 Motherboard with a Burton 3200+ running in it

Planning to "upgrade" my 1,5 Gb standard SDRAM 333 with two Kingston Modules KVR400X64C3A/512 .
I've read my MB supports only 3200's memory.
What do you thinks about?
Good results or poor changes?

Any suggestion about other products will be fine for me?
A friends of mine sell's Kingstone so they will be cheaper for me.

Any "expert" counsil will be appreciated.

Bye, thanks

 

[Fern]

Hi seriosha and Welcome to the Forums!

An upgrade to PC3200 will be a good choice. As it is, you have a cpu with a FSB of 200/400 and appear to be using ram that is FSB 166/333. Either the cpu is underclocked, you are running in asynch mode (different FSB speeds for cpu and ram) which is a bad thing for performance in an Athlon XP system , or the PC 2700 (DDR 333) ram is OC'd to PC 3200 (DDR 400) speeds (in which case you may not need to upgrade).

That Kingston ram has a Cas 3.0, which is slow. Even though you can get a good deal, I suggest you also look at Corsair Value Select which is inexpensive too but has a Cas 2.5

Fern

 

[seriosha]

Thanks Fern for the answer and suggestion, sorry for the "cross" but it's my first forum and after I posted in MB I thought may be not the correct forum and so reposted.

By the way I've not OC neither the MB than the memory.
I was looking today on the Corsair site for the XMS Twin-X PC3200XLPRO or the TWINX1024-3200 LL . Maybe they are the best of Corsair for me, no ? :thumbsup: Which is better?


On the value band I've seen the following :

VS1GB400C3 PC3200 1024MB 128Mx64 184 DIMM
or
VS1GBKIT400 PC3200 1024MB 2x64Mx64 2x184 DIMM
or
VS1GBKIT400C3 PC3200 1024MB 2x64Mx64 2x184 DIMM (C3???)

What are the best choice for me?
Can you suggest?

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: Fern
Hi seriosha and Welcome to the Forums!

An upgrade to PC3200 will be a good choice. As it is, you have a cpu with a FSB of 200/400 and appear to be using ram that is FSB 166/333.

RAM can't be "FSB something". FSB refers to the CPU's Front Side Bus, in case we've forgotten.

But yes, he appears to have the FSB at 200 and the RAM bus at 166.

When trying to step up to 200 on the RAM, be aware that this technology has its limitations as far as DIMM and RAM chip count goes. Officially no more than one single (!) DIMM may be present on a RAM channel to let it run 200 MHz.

 

[seriosha]

Thanks Peter, but I don't understand what you mean.
Are you saying I can't have more than a single memory card in my slots to run at 400 Mhz?
Should I purchase only 1 Gb cards (espensive) and no 2 x 512 mb ?


Please Help!!!

 

[Peter]

PC3200 is 200 MHz. 200 MHz DDR does not equal 400 MHz, no matter how often the marketing airheads tell you that. Thank you.

The JEDEC organization calculated and specified PC3200 for single-DIMM operation. With two DIMMs on the same memory channel, you are pushing your luck already, operation at 200 MHz not guaranteed. In fact, two-DIMM setups are what PC2700 has been engineered for.

So, if I were you, I'd buy a single big DIMM for your single-channel mainboard. They're not really more expensive than a pair of 512-MByte DIMMs of the same quality.