PC2100 memory for Athlon 64 -- okay or bad?

[StormRider]

I have 4 512meg sticks of PC2100 lying around. With Socket 939 and dual channel memory, I wonder how crippled it would be if I used this memory to build a 2 gig Athlon 64 system (once Socket 939 drops in price)?

I figure dual channel will probably offset the slower speed of my memory (benchmarks seem to indicate that the Athlons are not bandwidth starved like the P4).

Am I correct? Using this memory shouldn't be too much of a bottleneck?

 

[Scifience]

PC2100 = NO Way

At least PC3200, if not more, to get good performance out of your A64.

 

[StormRider]

Wouldn't dual channel PC2100 offer more bandwidth than single channel PC3200?

 

[nycxandy]

It should be fine. Running async won't hurt your performance much.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: nycxandy
It should be fine. Running async won't hurt your performance much.

It will hurt. Amd's should run sync. always. Matter of fact, I even tried a weird divider on set up once when I ran 220 HTT x 110Mhz ram. It killed performance.


Dual channel wont mean much since the speed of the bus is still limited by the ram. The pathway is doubled in size yet only traveling at PC2100 speeds. Think of it as an 6 lane highway with a speed limit of 30 mph.

 

[CraigRT]

depends on the speed of the CPU's FSB

to be honest, i can't remember what their native FSB is, but I am assuming it's 400 MHz/ PC3200 spec... which means the PC2100 might not even work at all.

dual channel gives slightly more bandwidth yes, but there are no dual channel chipsets right now for the A64... not only that, but dual channel PC2100 probably won't be as fast as if it was single channel clocked at 400 Mhz anyways. so either way it's crapola.. PC3200 or greater all the way!

 

[jdogg707]

Sell the PC2100 sticks and grab some PC3200, why buy a great processor and mobo only to cripple it's performance with slow memory?

 

[Runner20]

To second almost everyone here, I say getting 3200 RAM. Get PC3500 or higher if your going to overclock.

 

[BFG10K]

It'll probably be around 15%-20% slower. I'd say sell it and buy PC3200 instead.