RAM questions, recommendations please for DS3

[mcurphy]

I'll be building a rig with a Gigabyte DS3 board and I am in the process of selecting RAM. With my last build I didn't pay any attention to the RAM I was getting. I just bought some cheap PC2700 and never had any problems. But, with this board, it seems it may be picky on what I put in it. Also, I'm not really into OC'ing. I might bump it up a bit, but far from shooting for any speed records. My budget is $250 for 2GB.

My first question regarding voltage...what's up with the different voltages, lol? I'm looking at some PC6400 sets and they run from 1.8v to 2.3v, is one better than the other, what difference does it make etc...

Next question is the CAS. Is it the lower the better? Cas 4 > Cas5? Is this really important if I'm not going to OC much?

Dual Channel question...I may decide to go with 1GB now, and add one later, is this a bad idea if I want to utilize Dual Channel? Or is it better to buy the sticks in a DC Kit as it seems many are offered this way.

And lastly, recommendations please!
Mushkin?
A-Data?
OCZ Platinum?
Corsair XMS?
Kingston HyperX?
Buffalo Firestix?
Patriot?

😕
So many to choose from and confusing to pick one over the other. Is one brand better than the other? More reliable? Like I said earlier, I don't need anything extreme for OC'ing, I am getting an E6300 and using the stock cooler so I won't be going too far with any OC. I really just want some reliable RAM with decent performance

I'm sorry if these questions are redundant to many other posts, but I couldn't really find the answers I was looking for, and the "search" function on the boards has been a POS lately.

Thank you much for the time to explain some of these maybe obvious questions!

Mcurphy

 

[Roguestar]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1966035 :thumbsup:

Personal recommendation: if overclocking, stay away from Corsair unless you're spending Megabux$$$. Crucial Ballistix are reliable and practically guaranteed micron D9 chips.

Edit: Yeah, the search function may as well be dead at this point.

 

[mcurphy]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1966035 :thumbsup:

Personal recommendation: if overclocking, stay away from Corsair unless you're spending Megabux$$$. Crucial Ballistix are reliable and practically guaranteed micron D9 chips.

Edit: Yeah, the search function may as well be dead at this point.

Thanks for the reply. I have read through that thread before, but it is pertaining to RAM to maximize OC'ing, which I'm not that interested in. Also, it is not specific to the DS3 board which, from reading several other posts, can be very finicky with RAM

 

[Roguestar]

The DS3 has had a lot of work done to it, in particular the latest BIOSes have no problem with Micron D9 like earlier. If your RAM needs 2.1V just put one stick in, boot to the BIOS and change the vDIMM to 2.1v (+0.3). The official DDR2 specification calls for 1.8v but 99% of performance sticks these days will want around 2.1v or higher. Don't worry about it as long as you aren't exceeding the voltage rating your RAM is rated for on its product description 🙂.

If you're just after some decent no-frills RAM then I'd suggest Corsair Value Select or Crucial Value Whateverthey'recalled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_Channel Basically you double the memory bandwidth by having two modules instead of one. Buying 1x 1Gb stick now and getting another later is better than getting 2x 512Mb now and another two later because if you want to go over 2Gb you'll need to ditch the whole lot to upgrade.

In fact, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR2 should help you understand things like CAS timings. The memory timings indicate how long (in basic terms) the memory has to wait before sending information so the lower the numbers is generally the better.

If you're not overclocking the E6300 at all, PC-5300 is all you need to run it at stock. However if you shell out the couple of dollars more for PC-6400 you can, without worrying about your memory, run the FSB up to 400 (401 is the best spot to jump to actually) if you feel you want to squeeze a bit more performance out for your hard-earned cash.


2Gb Corsair ValueSelect PC-5300 for $210:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145098