It's worth the difference?

[brutrak]

Hi,

I'm planning to upgrade my system with an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Mobo + Pentium 3.2 800FSB (Northwood).

My doubt is the optimal RAM to match the above components. I currently own a stick of 512 Mbs Kingston ValueRam DDR333. I guess this will be a bottleneck for the system.....

If this is true, is it worth the upgrade to a faster RAM? Then, which one?

Im not planning to overclock. Is Valueram DDR400 a good choice? Or is HyperX DDR400 worth the $?

A final question: when is DDR433, DDR500, .... needed?

Thanks!!

bru

 

[TheBDB]

You should definately upgrade to DDR400 so it will run in sync. If you are not going to overclock getting the HyperX or anything faster than 400 probably isn't worth it.

 

[WobbleWobble]

You can see if you RAM will run at PC3200 speeds before you go out and buy a new pair.

I'd stick with the ValueRAM if I were you.

 

[maluckey]

The ratings on the Kingston RAM are really for a minimum, not maximum speed. Some of the Value RAM rated at 3200 speed is in reality Hynix D43 chips, which are often used in DDR500 RAM sticks. Most of the Kingston 512mb HyperX PC2700 and PC 3000 are in reality WinBond Bh-5, which are some of the most sought after chips for Overclockers. My 2 modules of KHX2700/512 are remarked BH-5, now marked as D328DW-50.

If you don't care about warranty, take off the heaters (heat spreader). The RAM works better without it anyways, and read the numbers on the chips and cross reference it on the XtremeSystem Forums.