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DDR3 Question

Z

zabolots

Junior Member
I'm going to be building a new PC based around the Asus P5E3 Deluxe (x38) or possibly holding out for the P5E3 Premium (x48). Would I be better off with a single stick of faster DDR3 memory (DDR3 PC3-12800 ? 8-8-8-24) or dual sticks of slower memory (DDR3 PC3-8500 ? CL=7)?

I seem to recall reading something about interleaving dual DIMMs for increased performance. Is this analogous to RAID 0 where the data is striped across DIMMs? Would two slower DIMMs give better performance than a single faster DIMM on this motherboard?

Also, is the memory bus tied to the CPU FSB? I'm planning on getting the E8500 when it's released. Does this "force" me to get the faster memory?

Thanks...Scott
 
Unless you have lots of extra money, don't bother with DDR3.

Dual channel is much faster, and yeah your analogy is pretty much correct.

E8500 fsb =1333mhz, that is quad pumped, real fsb is 333mhz. DDR2 is double pumped, therefore to run your RAM at a 1:1 ratio with your CPU without overclocking the correct memory would be DDR2-667. The performance gains you will see will DDR3 would be negligible.
 
However, as the market and techonology progresses, DDR2 will probably be phased out. Choosing a board with DDR3 support is likely a good financial long-term decision improving the futureproof-ness of your rig, though the cost for DDR3 modules will be expensive at this present time.
 
By the time DDR3 becomes mainstream and affordable, LGA775 will have been made obsolete by the Nehalem socket change. So one or two years from now, you'd be stuck with a board that you bought overpriced RAM for, and that still won't be able to run the latest CPUs.
 
Thanks for the info, guys. I've pretty much decided to go with DDR3 so at least my memory will be re-usable with my next upgrade. The basic question is still: am I better off with 2 lower-speed DIMMs or 1 faster DIMM?
 
1 Faster dimm gives you the benefit of upgrading in the future.

I would recommend going with the Generic Crucials right now though as they have the same overclocking chips as some of the better overclocking setups.

Just need to increase voltage and throw a fan + some heatspreaders on and you can hit some pretty decent overclocks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820148148
 
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