Questions on RAM

[Matmi]

I'm about to order a new system and it seems that the memory I was looking at (Corsair 2GB PC5400 C4, 675MHz) is sold out at Directron (for some reasons, I can't order elsewhere) and no ETA is available.

I'm a newbie but I know that latency is important. What I can't comprehend is if a lower speed will really have an impact, with the same latency of 4. For instance, what if I take a PC4200 RAM from Kingston or Mushkin, at 533MHz ?

I need 2GB as I use Photoshop quite a bit. This will be the "main use" of my memory.

The rest of my system is P5B, Intel E6600, one WD Raptor 74GB, one WD Caviar, MSI 7600GS.

Any opintion ?

Thanks for your help !

 

[Fishy007]

We have a very similar system setup you and I. I'm running 533mhz ram from Kingston and OCZ (both of them value-ram) and have had no problems with my small overclock to 300mhz fsb. However, if you're ordering all new parts, I would suggest putting the money into 667mhz memory even if you have to wait for it a bit. It's sort of like buying a 2007 car with a cd player that can't read MP3's. Yes, it's not NECESSARY, but it's damned nice.

 

[Bobthelost]

If you're not overclocking at all then get DDR2 533 RAM. 667 is slower than 533 at stock settings.

If you are overclocking then faster RAM is better, 667 lets you put the FSB up to 333 without using dividers, 800 lets you up it to 400.

Lower latencies are nice, but uneconomical, the performance increase is only a few % and the cost increase is huge.

 

[Matmi]

That's very interesting.

I don't do any overclocking and have no intention to try.

In that case, I gather from your post that 533MHz would actually be better than 667MHz. That's very good news !

Thanks.