DDR2 - how much and how fast?

[The I]

Hello there. I'm putting together a rig for my younger cousin (putting together = deciding what he should buy in this instance).

The config will probably be:
X2 3800 + AM 2
MSI K9N SLI
7600 GT

He won't be overclocking and the system will probably be used for gaming, but not anything particularly cutting edge.

Now my question is mainly how much ram I should recommend, and at what speed grade.

1. Will 2 gb be needed? - considering the rest of the specs, will 1 gb risk bottlenecking the system?
2. Is it worth it investing in ddr2-800 instead of say ddr2-667? Where I'm living (Denmark) the premium is quite substantial (around $100 for 2*512 mb ddr2-800 vs 2*512 mb ddr2-667).

 

[theteamaqua]

2gb is maximum win xp support, for some reason win xp cant see any ram beyond 2 GB, eventhough on M$.com they said 4Gb is maximum


as for ram, any ddr2 with the right pin should be fine, since u r not gonna OC, as long as RAM speed is higher than FSB u should be fine

 

[imported_Questar]

Originally posted by: theteamaqua
2gb is maximum win xp support, for some reason win xp cant see any ram beyond 2 GB, eventhough on M$.com they said 4Gb is maximum


as for ram, any ddr2 with the right pin should be fine, since u r not gonna OC, as long as RAM speed is higher than FSB u should be fine

XP limits the amount an application can see to 2GB. XP can and will use 4GB.

Any economy ram will work fine. Don't bother with DDR2-800, it's just not worth the price.

 

[The I]

Pardon, but I'm not asking wether more than 2 GB, but wether it's worth spending the premium over 1 GB. So I gather economy DDR2-667 will be fine?

 

[RallyMaster]

Yes, DDR2-667 is fine. It is worth spending the money to get 2GB rather than 1GB. 1GB is barely capable of handling some of my games and lags quite a bit. Right now, I'm running on 512MB of Buffalo wings after I sold my Corsair VS 1GB. Patriot 2GB arriving today .

 

[dguy6789]

I would not recommend PC2 5300 DDR2(667Mhz) to anyone at the moment. This is because all the new platforms are offically supporting PC2 6400 DDR2(800Mhz). I would get PC2 6400 because even if your X2 3800+ may not see the benefit of it, you would at least be able to use the same memory you get now on future systems with no penalty.

Size wise, I would recommend getting anywhere from two to four 1GB sticks. 2GB is excellent for now. I have 2GB in my current system and absolutely love the responsiveness and the fact that swapping never occurs. It is absolutely awesome. However, 2GB may not be enough to run the latest applications in late 2007. My new pc that I will be building in January is going to have 4GB of ram as a result of learning how much memory Windows Vista takes up just doing nothing(~800MB).

 

[A554SS1N]

I've been looking at a similar combo (i.e. 2GB DDR2 with X2 3800+) and the performance on the tomshardware AM2 review between using 667MHz and 800Mhz DDR2 is quite small - it grows with increasing CPU frequency, but it's certainly Ok. Probably better to stick with the cheaper stuff for now, and only swap over to DDR2-800 when latencies and costs have come down.

 

[996GT2]

I ordered parts for my AM2 system last sunday, and got 2 GB OCZ Gold DDR2-667. I saw the benchmarks and the performance difference really isn't worth the extra $30 or so I'd pay for DDR2-800, plus you could always OC DDR2-667 to DDR2-800 or maybe even higher on good chips if you feel like trying out overclocking sometime.

Also 2 GB is highly recommended. Many modern apps and games will benefit from the extra memory, and multitasking performance will be boosted also.

 

[m1ldslide1]

2 gigs, 667 is fine.

 

[v8envy]

Get 667, the price difference vs 800 is pretty extreme, and you can simply replace the ram with 800 later when you need more of it with the $ you save now. DDR2 1000 and onward is out now, and we all know how well future-proofing works with computer components.

Budget stuff from a well-known first tier manufacturer is the way to fly, and absolutely get 2G.

Also, why are you getting an SLI motherboard, pricey CPU and a low end video card if gaming is in the picture? Unless you absolutely need the CPU for crunching numbers or the like, consider dropping down to a lower spec single core CPU (or go Intel) and less feature-filled motherboard to upgrade to a 7900GT or X1800XT.

Unless your cousin intends on playing mostly older games at lower res, and intends to do lots of Linux kernel development or database/Java work. Or folding. In which case your build is the way to go.

 

[Bateluer]

Anything slower than DDR2-800 is a waste. In order for the AM2 platform to outperform the s939, it needs the faster RAM. Xbit Labs did an AM2 article in which they compared 533, 667, and 800 RAM speeds, 800 came out on top and got their props.

 

[m1ldslide1]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Anything slower than DDR2-800 is a waste. In order for the AM2 platform to outperform the s939, it needs the faster RAM. Xbit Labs did an AM2 article in which they compared 533, 667, and 800 RAM speeds, 800 came out on top and got their props.

The performance increase from 667 to 800 is marginal from what I've read, however the price difference is not. I don't think the OP needs the AM2 to outperform the 939 anyway - just a solid midrange gaming rig for his cousin.

 

[cmrmrc]

Originally posted by: 996GT2
I ordered parts for my AM2 system last sunday, and got 2 GB OCZ Gold DDR2-667. I saw the benchmarks and the performance difference really isn't worth the extra $30 or so I'd pay for DDR2-800, plus you could always OC DDR2-667 to DDR2-800 or maybe even higher on good chips if you feel like trying out overclocking sometime.

Also 2 GB is highly recommended. Many modern apps and games will benefit from the extra memory, and multitasking performance will be boosted also.

Is your system stable?..Are you having any kinds of memory stability problems cuz ive looked around and alot of users are have probs with OCZ ddr-2 667 gold and the msi k9n plat.

 

[996GT2]

Ah, that is yet to be answered since Newegg sent me the wrong CPU (Sempron vs the A64 that I ordered). However those problems are probably mostly due to the voltage on the newer OCZ Gold DIMMs. They run at 1.9V versus the 1.8V standard to most DDR2, and the MSI board does not auto-detect this so the user must set the voltage to 1.9V by themselves. However, my OCZ gold is a slightly different variety (solid instead of honeycomb heatspreader) and runs at 1.8V, so I believe it should work. Will get back to you guys next week when I get the correct CPU.

 

[The I]

Originally posted by: v8envy
Get 667, the price difference vs 800 is pretty extreme, and you can simply replace the ram with 800 later when you need more of it with the $ you save now. DDR2 1000 and onward is out now, and we all know how well future-proofing works with computer components.

Budget stuff from a well-known first tier manufacturer is the way to fly, and absolutely get 2G.

Also, why are you getting an SLI motherboard, pricey CPU and a low end video card if gaming is in the picture? Unless you absolutely need the CPU for crunching numbers or the like, consider dropping down to a lower spec single core CPU (or go Intel) and less feature-filled motherboard to upgrade to a 7900GT or X1800XT.

Unless your cousin intends on playing mostly older games at lower res, and intends to do lots of Linux kernel development or database/Java work. Or folding. In which case your build is the way to go.

You think that's better? - I have thought about whether it would be worth it investing in a dual-core system over for example an AMD 64 XP3500+ and I had a post circulating about it a while ago.
My worry about going single core is that my cousin will probably be keeping this computer for quite a while, and I worry that while dual core might not make so much of a difference now at least I've had the feeling that it's going to matter a lot when more games get SMP-compatible.
But am I wrong, will a 7600GT be a bigger bottleneck to the system than a XP3500+ vs. a X2 XP3800+? - and will it keep being so on a two-three year horizon?

Thanks for your help so far. I guess I?m settled for 2 gigs of ddr2-667 on the memory-front.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: The I

You think that's better? - I have thought about whether it would be worth it investing in a dual-core system over for example an AMD 64 XP3500+ and I had a post circulating about it a while ago.

I'm sure you can dig out the xbit labs cpu scaling article yourself. In essence it boils down to this: modern games are held back by GPU power. Pixel shader power at low resolution, and raster/texture ops and memory bandwidth at high res and/or FSAA.

For all the games they tested faster CPUs stopped giving a return on investment right around a P4 3200/sempron 3400+/amd64 3000+. In other words, if a game gave 70 average fps with a 3000+, it gave 73 fps with an FX-60.

You can have a CPU that's slower, which means lower minimum frame rates and a linear drop off in performance if the CPU is not fast enough. Any celeron is a good example of a CPU that will be a problem for gaming. That being said, average frame rates were 10-20% less than the top of the line CPUs everything else being more or less the same.

This doesn't hold for video cards. If you get 20 fps with one video card, a higher end video card with 50% more pixel pushing oomph is quite likely to give you 30 fps in the same situation. You make the call -- 0-1% improvement due to a faster CPU, or 50-100% improvement due to a faster GPU for the same dollars.

The same applies to hardware accelerated video playback. An FX-62 will probably not be enough for 1080p playback with a low end video card, where something in the X1800XT or 7900GT class could manage it with a 3000+.

My worry about going single core is that my cousin will probably be keeping this computer for quite a while, and I worry that while dual core might not make so much of a difference now at least I've had the feeling that it's going to matter a lot when more games get SMP-compatible.
But am I wrong, will a 7600GT be a bigger bottleneck to the system than a XP3500+ vs. a X2 XP3800+? - and will it keep being so on a two-three year horizon?

Upgrading for as of yet non-existent games has NEVER worked. At the moment, every game out there will not show a difference between a 3500+ and 3800+ X2. If by some miracle you can detect a difference it'll be in favor of the 3500+. The only way to future proof is to keep money in your budget to upgrade in the future.

Thanks for your help so far. I guess I?m settled for 2 gigs of ddr2-667 on the memory-front.

I just built a rig with some G.Skill 4-4-4-12 667. It's more than blazing enough for the $150 no rebate price.

 

[LeiZaK]

Originally posted by: Questar

Originally posted by: theteamaqua
2gb is maximum win xp support, for some reason win xp cant see any ram beyond 2 GB, eventhough on M$.com they said 4Gb is maximum


as for ram, any ddr2 with the right pin should be fine, since u r not gonna OC, as long as RAM speed is higher than FSB u should be fine

XP limits the amount an application can see to 2GB. XP can and will use 4GB.

Any economy ram will work fine. Don't bother with DDR2-800, it's just not worth the price.

That's right. There's a workstation right beside me with 4 gigs in it running oracle on XP.