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How much performance difference between DDR & PC133?

bradruth

bradruth

Lifer
I have a secondary gaming system running 256mb of PC133 right now (full specs below), but I plan to upgrade it to 256mb of PC2100 DDR. A few games run a bit sluggish at times (BF1942, RTCW), so I'd like to know how much this will help. I know many will say 512mb would be much better, but I plan to save my cash for my main rig. I can get the DDR through a trade on the FS/FT forum or buy a stick for $10 @ officemax. I appreciate your advice/answers.

MSI KT2 Combo-L (Via KT266A, takes either DDR or SDRAM)
Athlon XP 1700+ @ 2000+
256mb PC133 RAM
40gb WD 7200rpm ATA-100 HD
ATI Radeon 9100 64mb
Mitsumi 4x4x24 CDRW
Onboard NIC
Onboard sound
 
On the 266A, PC2100 may make a pretty big difference. Maybe I'd estimate 20%, but I may be wrong.

BTW, that Kingston ram's been free before @ Omax, if you can wait for it to be free again.
 
There would be a bigger difference of just adding another 256 megs of pc133 than changing the memory types because your games are running out of usable memory right now.
 
I only have 2 memory slots for each type, and the PC133 slots are filled (2x128), so I'm going DDR if I buy some RAM. I missed out on free PNY RAM from officemax a couple weeks ago, so it'd probably be a while until they offer free stuff again. I'll check out those old articles for the benchmarks too (if anyone has a link to these I'd appreciate it).
 
The 256 2100 has been free about 4 times thus far (from both Kingston and K-Byte). I wouldn't be surprised if within the next month, it's free again. Each time, it's $40 - $20 rebate - $20 additional rebate.

On DDR performance with KT266A, look on Anand's site by searching KT266A. Or go to Tomshardware and search up KT266A.

Back then the DDR chipsets in order were:
KT266A (fastest), SiS735, AMD760, Ali Magik 1.

The Ali performed similarly on both DDR and SDRam, so use that chipset benchmark as an idea of how your board does with SDRam.
 
hate to say it but going to 512 really does help. Try to get a stick of 512 ddr if you b/c my rig plays those games smooth (especially RTCW) and there isn't THAT much of a diffeence between them
 
Here's the KT266A review from Anandtech. The KT133A pretty much represents SDRam, so just compare KT133A to KT266A to see what you're missing out on (and yes, the original KT266 was very slow, sometimes slower than KT133A).

I have to say that going from 256MB to 512Mb was more making my box future-proof than improving performance. I'd get a free one next time then pick up a 2nd free one a few weeks later or have a friend buy you one when the ram is free again.

Today is the first time I remember in a long time going over 256Mb useage doing productivity stuff (while unproductively browsing forums).
 
Thanks for the link, Ionizer. When I originally got the system I figured that I'd upgrade my main rig to 1gig PC3200 RAM and then put the 512 PC2700 in that one, but that's pretty damn expensive 😉. I'm thinking maybe I'll get the $10 RAM now and then grab another stick when it's free again. This system will be my online gaming rig when I come home from college one or two weekends a month, so it doesn't have to be *really* great.
 
Here's a question. Which should take higher priority, upping my main system to 1gb RAM or upping the secondary system to 512mb?
 
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