Mixing RAM help.

[de8212]

My current RAM is Kingston HyperX pc3200 (CAS2). Two 512MB sticks.

If I wanted to purchase another gig of RAM (2/512's) what are my options? Do I have to stick with CAS2 RAM? Does it have to be pc3200?

I normally purchase Crucial RAM but all I see are CL 2.5 pc2700 or cl 3 pc3200. they do have "ballistic" but I don't know the CL.

bw my mobo is a http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr.../Products_GA-8IK1100%20(Rev%202.0).htm.

any other ideas?

 

[stevty2889]

It depends on a lot of things. What FSB is your proccessor using? IF you are using an 800mhz FSB cpu, then it would be best to get PC3200, otherwise PC2700 would be ok, but PC3200 would still be better. If you get cl3 PC3200 it will work fine, but all your sticks will have to run at cas3. Also, what is it that you are doing that you need more than 1 gig of ram for?? If your doing video editing or something with large files it may help, but gaming wise, it won't likely help at all and may even decrease performance.

 

[ribbon13]

$58x2 Corsair VS512MB400

If you really need that much ram, you would be better off with 2x1G sticks.
$149 Corsair VS1GB400C3

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: de8212
My current RAM is Kingston HyperX pc3200 (CAS2). Two 512MB sticks.

If I wanted to purchase another gig of RAM (2/512's) what are my options? Do I have to stick with CAS2 RAM? Does it have to be pc3200?

I normally purchase Crucial RAM but all I see are CL 2.5 pc2700 or cl 3 pc3200. they do have "ballistic" but I don't know the CL.

bw my mobo is a http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr.../Products_GA-8IK1100%20(Rev%202.0).htm.

any other ideas?

you dont have to stick with cas-2 or pc3200, but the faster ram will automatically downclock to the speed of the slowest stick(ie 3-3-3-8-2t and 333mhz).

 

[fstime]

Originally posted by: de8212
My current RAM is Kingston HyperX pc3200 (CAS2). Two 512MB sticks.

If I wanted to purchase another gig of RAM (2/512's) what are my options? Do I have to stick with CAS2 RAM? Does it have to be pc3200?

I normally purchase Crucial RAM but all I see are CL 2.5 pc2700 or cl 3 pc3200. they do have "ballistic" but I don't know the CL.

bw my mobo is a http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr.../Products_GA-8IK1100%20(Rev%202.0).htm.

any other ideas?

You dont need 2 gigs.

 

[de8212]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
It depends on a lot of things. What FSB is your proccessor using? IF you are using an 800mhz FSB cpu, then it would be best to get PC3200, otherwise PC2700 would be ok, but PC3200 would still be better. If you get cl3 PC3200 it will work fine, but all your sticks will have to run at cas3. Also, what is it that you are doing that you need more than 1 gig of ram for?? If your doing video editing or something with large files it may help, but gaming wise, it won't likely help at all and may even decrease performance.

800MHz FSB. didn't know it could decrease performance. I mainly wanted it for running several different windows apps at the same time and some large files. but I did think it would help with loading maps/games/etc.

Originally posted by: Bouzouki
You dont need 2 gigs.

you don't need 3 hard drives.

 

[stevty2889]

Well it could help if you are running multiple memory intesive tasks at once, and working with large files. But definatly with an 800mhz FSB cpu, you need to use PC3200, or it will be a big bottleneck. In this case, Cas3 pc3200 would be much better than cas2 PC2700, as P4's are bandwidth hungry.

 

[de8212]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
Well it could help if you are running multiple memory intesive tasks at once, and working with large files. But definatly with an 800mhz FSB cpu, you need to use PC3200, or it will be a big bottleneck. In this case, Cas3 pc3200 would be much better than cas2 PC2700, as P4's are bandwidth hungry.

Gotcha. So if i did get the Cas3 then ecen my Cas2 Kingston would only run at Cas3?

Thanks for the help.

 

[fstime]

Originally posted by: de8212

Originally posted by: stevty2889
It depends on a lot of things. What FSB is your proccessor using? IF you are using an 800mhz FSB cpu, then it would be best to get PC3200, otherwise PC2700 would be ok, but PC3200 would still be better. If you get cl3 PC3200 it will work fine, but all your sticks will have to run at cas3. Also, what is it that you are doing that you need more than 1 gig of ram for?? If your doing video editing or something with large files it may help, but gaming wise, it won't likely help at all and may even decrease performance.

800MHz FSB. didn't know it could decrease performance. I mainly wanted it for running several different windows apps at the same time and some large files. but I did think it would help with loading maps/games/etc.

Originally posted by: Bouzouki
You dont need 2 gigs.

you don't need 3 hard drives.

Yes I do but thats not the point, 2 gigs of ram is useless but waste your money if you'd like.

BTW, its more like 2 hard drives since I use raid.