Quick Memory Question

[kungfu1]

Hi There,

I was talking to someone today and they said something I thought was rather bizzare, I was hoping some of the pros here could clear this up for me.

First of all to get this out of the way, We're talking about a laptop with a C2D T7100 Processor, 800mhz bus.

The person I was talking to said this, verbatim: They want 800mhz ram instead of 667 so that "I can infact underclock the ram, thereby reducing power consumption and still have performance on par with ddr2-667 because the memory timings fit in sync with the fsb. (1:1 clock ratios) This would be really beneficial for a laptop"

To me, this makes no sense. I dont believe that you get any power savings by underclocking your memory, as that to me i thought was a voltage thing. Is this guy smoking crack or is he right?

Last question, the memory in the laptop its 667mhz. Would there be much benefit to upgrading to 800mhz laptop ram? It's a Dell laptop and the only option they sell it with is 667, is this limited to just 667mhz or would 800 most likely work?


Thanks all for your time.

 

[Aluvus]

Memory rated to run at a higher speed uses the same chips, it's just that the chips "binned" better after testing. Memory capable of running at a higher speed may also fair a bit better running at a lower speed with reduced voltage, which would be some power savings.

The real-world difference in power use, assuming there is any, would not be much. You could probably do much more by reducing the screen brightness or switching to a lower-power processor.

 

[kungfu1]

Originally posted by: Aluvus
Memory rated to run at a higher speed uses the same chips, it's just that the chips "binned" better after testing. Memory capable of running at a higher speed may also fair a bit better running at a lower speed with reduced voltage, which would be some power savings.

The real-world difference in power use, assuming there is any, would not be much. You could probably do much more by reducing the screen brightness or switching to a lower-power processor.

Thank you for your reply. Your resonse was almost the same argument I came up with as well. Thank you, its a relief to know I didnt make an ass of myself