Mixing Memory?

[QUOTH]

I have two sticks of 512mb 533mhz and I want to get two additional 1gb sticks. Can I buy 800mhz, or do I need to buy 533mhz?

Does it make much difference? Oh, and to be clear, DDR2.

Also what else do you need to look at when buying quality ram? My budget is about 50 GBP ~ 100 dollars [i think]. Like this

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dueal 5000+ 2.61GHz
evga 8600gts
windows xp 32, may be upgrading to vista 64

Details

Oh and whats non-ECC Ram?

 

[daveybrat]

Yes, you can mix them. The 800MHz sticks will simply run at 533MHz, the same as your other 2 sticks of ram.

 

[QUOTH]

Great, thanks to know. So now the question is do i get the 800 and eventually updage my 533mhz.

Is there much difference between 533mhz and 800mhz DDR2 [if i want to upgrade all ram to 800 in furture]? I'm not overclocking. Ocassional newish games, occasional photo editing and 2/3d modelling.

What do I look for in good ram? just a brand names? timings? something else?


Thanks guys.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: QUOTH
Great, thanks to know. So now the question is do i get the 800 and eventually updage my 533mhz.

Is there much difference between 533mhz and 800mhz DDR2

What do I look for in good ram? just a brand names? timings? something else?

If "eventually updage my 533mhz." means buy a new motherboard, then, yes, you can run the memory on an 800mhz buss. If you mean that you want to somehow change you current motherboard to run an 800mhz buss, then that depends on your existing motherboard's options.

Yes, there is a performance difference between 533 and 800.

"What do I look for in good ram?" Answering that would require that I post a rather large tome or link to a significant portion of the total content of the internets!

To choose memory there are two choices.
Read a bunch of stickies and posts on various forums about choosing memory in order to educate yourself to the point that you are confident in your choices.
Or, use the memory configuration utilities available on any memory manufacturer's websites.

Perhaps if you added you system specs to your signature we'd all know what you are talking about and could offer more concrete replies.

 

[QUOTH]

My PC is a dell e521, so sadly I dont have any thorough details on the motherboard.

My current motherboard supports 800mhz's sticks upto 1GB. Plan would be to upgrade the old sticks when I have the cash, and eventualy stick them in my next motherboard. I don't need top end hardware, so I don't care about DDR3 motherboards.

OK, I'm probably going to get two sticks[ units? Pieces?] of 1GB 800mhz RAM, and upgrade the rest in the future.

Another question! How should i configure my missmatched RAM? the two 1gb pieces in dimm 1 and two, and the 512mb's in 3 and 4?

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: QUOTH
Another question! How should i configure my missmatched RAM? the two 1gb pieces in dimm 1 and two, and the 512mb's in 3 and 4?

Oh, why do people want to do this nonsense!

Anyway....

To run in dual channel mode the sticks have to be in the correct slots (usually one set in slots 1 and 3, the other in 2 and 4). Your manual will tell you what is correct for your motherboard. If you don't have a manual, download it from DELL (use the service Tag No.).

When default BIOS settings are set (and I doubt you can change yours) the timings read from the SPD eprom in the first module the BIOS sees (usually the one in the slot closest to the CPU) are used for ALL the sticks. So, the problem is that perhaps ALL you sticks won't run with these speeds and timings. So, what you want to do is to put the sticks with the slowest default speed and loosest timings in the set of slots that includes the one closest to the CPU. Some experimenting by switching the sticks around may be necessary. Or you could use CPU-Z to read the SPD timings and install them accordingly.

If there is no combination that will boot, then setting the timings manually in the BIOS will be necessary. If you can't do that, sell the 512 sticks.

There could also be problems with memory voltage if all the sticks don't use the same voltage, or at least voltages that are close to each other. The memory manufacturer's website will have the voltage speca for the memory. But if each set will run alone, then their specs should be close enough to run together.

And lastly, if you get through all that and do get then to run together, all the sticks will be running at the speed and timings of the slowest set of sticks. Only benchmarking and use will tell you if 2x512, 2x1gig, or 2x512+2x1gig will be best.

 

[QUOTH]

(and I doubt you can change yours)

Lol.

Reason I'm doing this is so I can buy a couple of 2gb sticks when I upgrade and get a motherboard with can take 2gb sticks. Then I will have 6gb, which is more than I will ever need.

Details, thats what I wanted. I'll have to reread but I get the gist. And if only the two gig sticks work, thats fine for now.


OK, so you said that usually dual channel ram has to be configured 1&3 2&4? Just want to make shure I get this rate. Lets say I have 4 sticks of 1gb dual channel ram from two manufacturers, do the same rules generally apply? 1&3 for manufacturer A 2&4 for manufacturer B?