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More RAM or faster RAM?

P

powerMarkymark

Platinum Member
Generally speaking, is 2 X 256 Kingston HyperX in Dual channel mode better than say 2 X 512 MAJOR (or generic) PC3200 RAM?

TIA

Mark
 
strictly depends on overclocking really.

there isn't a CPU or mobo out there that's default is to run at PC3500 speed (433Mhz) so it is strictly to do with overclocking for the most part.

truthfully, Id be tempted to go with the gig of 2x512 PC3200 if it wasn't going to be overclocking.

the Hyper-X is great memory, will also run at lower latencies, but having a gig, if you are not overclocking your PC, is what i would do, probably.
keep in mind, you could be using an older CPU or even a Barton at 333 FSB, and still not be overclocking the PC3200, so there is still a bit of headroom for the PC3200 RAM in some cases for overclocking... you WOULD be fine though with 512 of Hyper-X.. 512 is "enough" thesedays, but in some cases, you can actually see where a gig makes a difference.. (some big games)
 
Huge influencing factor is whether you play top games like FarCry

FarCry does tons of fileswapping at only 512MB ram, but none with 1GB Ram.
 
1gb should be somewhat futureproof (unless it's pc2100, then the asynch would kill you), at least until the games like EQ2 that list it as a minimum requirement saturate the market.
 
Originally posted by: Alkali
Huge influencing factor is whether you play top games like FarCry

FarCry does tons of fileswapping at only 512MB ram, but none with 1GB Ram.
Click to expand...


I do play games and I did/do like Far Cry.
 
A couple of months back I had the same problem, but decided that the premium wasn't worht it for the tighter timings. I also didn't want generic ram.

I bought 2X 512megs of Corsair's value line, it was called a value pack or something. I paid $1 extra for cas 2.5 over the cas 3 (kinda makes me wonder if anyone buys the cas3 packs when its only $1-$3 difference).

the only beef I have is that it doesn't "officially" support dual channel, but so far it runs fine.
 
If you are playing games like Far Cry definitely get the 1gig over the 512mb, even if its a little bit slower.
 
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