Few memory questions...

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cessation

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Jan 9, 2003
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My bro just gave me his motherboard,cpu,ram. It's a ga-7vaxp(giga byte), my other system has rdram in it so I'm not real sure on what's the best DDR ram to get for this machine. The bios says it can handle 400Mhz DDR ram. But right now there is a stick of some decent mushkin PC2100 (266MHZ) ram in the motherboard. Sisandra says the ram is 2.5-3-3-6CL 256MB dual bank(512MB total) with 1.5 gigs or so bandwidth.

So I don't know if it's worth taking out this old stick of ram and just replacing it with some better 400MHZ with better bandwidth such as 3.2gigs to 3.5gigs or just adding more 266MHZ ram. I've read a lot of reviews and it seems like the higher speed memory does help quite a bit in games and other apps. But I figured I'd ask here first sense reviews aren't like owning whatever your reviewing for months or years.

If I'm not going to see a good 20-30% or more increase then it isn't worth it to me.


TIA for any help :)
 
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DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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Higher speed memory only helps if the processor can make use of the bandwidth. If your processor has a 266 FSB then it will just ignore the extra bandwidth.

So the only reason to buy faster memory is if you want extra memory beyond what you have now, and you might want to take that memory and reuse it in a new motherboard/CPU like an Athlon A64.
 
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cessation

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Jan 9, 2003
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Right now there is a Athlon XP 1500 in here but I'm about to put a Athlon XP 3000 with 333 FSB. So even though the motherboard lets my memory run at 400MHZ it wouldn't help? If not I take it 333MHZ memory isn't going to make much of a difference from 266MHZ memory, correct?
 
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Arcanedeath

Platinum Member
Jan 29, 2000
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W/ Athlon XP you always want to run the CPU and Memory in Sync so for an Axp 3000+ w/ a 333fsb you would want PC2700 memory to get the maxium performance from your system, however w/ as cheap as PC3200 is now if you are going to replace what you have I'd get that as opposed to PC2700 as it may last you somewhat longer.
 
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cessation

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Jan 9, 2003
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So is upgrading my memory from 266MHZ to 333MHZ worth it(performance wise) sense 400MHZ isn't going to do me any good? Well unless I use it in another system later on etc. Thanks again for the replies. Also I should go with best bandwidth ram at 333mhz correct? (if I upgrade)
 
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