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quick memory question

S

Special K

Diamond Member
I want to add some more RAM to my desktop PC. Right now I have 2x512 MB of Samsung PC-4300 DDR2. When I plug my system info. into Crucial's memory selector, the slowest recommended speed it gives me is PC-5300.

On the other hand, Newegg is selling 1 GB (2x512 MB) of Corsair PC-4200 for nearly $100 less than Crucial. If I am never going to overclock, is there any reason to buy anything faster than PC-4200/4300?

My CPU is a P4 3.0C (Prescott) if it matters.
 
it might give you some extra speed. don't know how much, if any at all. i googled it and all i came up with is speed is more important than latency if that helps any
 
It won't make a lick of difference if you keep in the old memory. If you use only the new memory, it might make some difference, I really don't know. I know that Netburst likes raw Mhz over latency, so don't worry about latencies, but I don't know how much difference the speed increases make, if any.
 
If you've got the 4 DIMM slots, then just stick two new sticks in. Go for the cheapest if you're not overclocking. PC4200 is what you already have so if you buy PC5300 and keep the old stuff the new stuff will run at the PC4200 speed anyway.
 
Originally posted by: Roguestar
If you've got the 4 DIMM slots, then just stick two new sticks in. Go for the cheapest if you're not overclocking. PC4200 is what you already have so if you buy PC5300 and keep the old stuff the new stuff will run at the PC4200 speed anyway.
Click to expand...


Even if I bought faster than PC4200 for all 4 slots, it would only run faster than PC4200 if I overclocked the FSB, right? Isn't the default FSB speed 533 MHz, which corresponds to PC4200?
 
If all your memory is 5400, it will run at 5400. It will be out of sync with the FSB, but I'm told that doesn't hurt you too much? I'm not sure on that, but I do know for sure that 667mhz memory will run at 667 unless you go into the bios and tell it to run at 533, The 533 FSB doesn't limit the memory's bandwidth.

That said, the CPU won't benefit from that increased bandwidth, but the rest of the system will (your graphics card, your HDDs, etc etc).
 
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