Worth the upgrade? - Kind of dumb but need to ask in order to know

[wayliff]

Currently have

AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
2 x 512 MB XMS Corsair CAS 2 RAM (PC3200)

Should I upgrade to 2 x 1GB? If so, would it be worth going DDR500?
I dont overclock but definitely like a speedy system.

Would i notice much of a difference between the DDR400 and DDR500?

I would think the processor would benefit from the faster bus.

Thanks for your help.

 

[BlueWeasel]

The processor will only benefit if you are overclocking and pushing the effective memory speed over 400Mhz (the default speed of DDR400).

If you aren't overclocking, then getting DDR500 isn't going to help, as the effective memory speed is still 400Mhz....DDR500 would probably allow for for tighter timings at DDR400 speed, but the upgrade isn't worth it IMHO.

 

[Geomagick]

Ok 2 x 1GB will make the system a little quicker but it really depends on what you do.

If you don't overclock then there is NO point at all in going for DDR500.

Just stick with DDR400.

 

[Zap]

As mentioned, don't bother with PC4000 if not overclocking, instead go with lower latencies if you want that extra 1% performance.

1GB vs 2GB

Some things may be "faster" with more RAM while most things will be exactly the same. For instance, I've heard that BF2 loads much quicker if you have 2GB RAM versus 1GB - anyone sitting there waiting for the game to finish loading while the guy next to him at the LAN party is already jumping in a vehicle can attest to that. As for actual performance once game is loaded, there's almost no difference. Other bloated software may be the same, loading faster because there's less disk swapping.

If you have the money to burn, go for it, otherwise don't bother.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I personally wouldn't pay extra for DDR500, the gains are just too minimal on A64 platforms (even dual core ones, from what I've seen).

What applications/games do you run? Do you do a lot of heavy multitasking? I just upgraded from 1GB (2x512MB PC3200) to 2GB (added two more cheap 512MB PC3200 sticks) a month or two back and it made a huge difference in multitasking, particularly video encoding while doing other stuff (including gaming). However, if you mostly run "small" applications and/or only one heavy application(/game) at a time, 2GB may not be a noticeable upgrade for you. If you notice lots of page file hits (hard drive churning/hitches) during gameplay or other use, you could probably benefit from more RAM (also check your memory usage in the Windows Task Manager).

 

[wayliff]

photoshop, some games bfme, vb editor...nothing really intensive.

 

[hans007]

i would not pay for ddr500 or even cas2 ram.

2gb supposedly helps out at high res in certain games like bf2, or WoW from what i've heard.

if you are like a photoshopper or 3dsmax / maya user then yeah it probably will help a lot .

 

[wayliff]

I will stop my inquiry here and not upgrade ... it would be a waste.