ddr2/3?

Vasily87

Vasily87

Vasily87

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22 Jul 2011
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52
Hi, i am running a phenom II x2 550be, with 4gb of ddr2 ram. The frequency is 400mhz, I was looking at a new motherboard and seen that most would require ddr3, would this give me much of an increase in performance with my current cpu? thanks
 
DDR2 is legacy (kid of). Do yourself a favour and get a DDR3 motherboard. The main reason for this is that DDR2 prices will always be high as manufacturing has stopped for them, so if you want to upgrade to 8GB at some point in the future you'll pay a lot of money compared to buying DDR3 ram.

The speed difference is only visible in benchmarks and if you overclock a lot. In day to day tasks yo wont notice a difference between DDR2 and DDR3 (unless they are running at different speeds ofourse)
 
what do you mean running at different speeds? I am looking at a new mobo for unlocking cores and most seem to be ddr3 so i didnt see anypoint in buying older technology! thanks for the info so far!
 
Vasily87 said:
what do you mean running at different speeds? I am looking at a new mobo for unlocking cores and most seem to be ddr3 so i didnt see anypoint in buying older technology! thanks for the info so far!
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Memory can run at different speeds, for example 1333Mhz and 1600Mhz. Best to get 1600Mhz as it can run at slower speeds and also gives you more room for overclocking. Yes get a DDR3 motherboard :) What's the rest of your system spec? What case have you got?
 
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/pcs/276940/advent-centurion-cbe1401/specifications that, i got it cheap and it mad better financial sense to me, but the mobo is crap and runs am2+ so dont know if that would be hindering my am3 chip? So im after a new am3 motherboard with ram and a graphics card. But i dont know what to go for first. The graphics or the board and ram. (basically running bf3) The case is big and has water cooling so im sure i can make use of them! Instead of scrapping it all.
 
How can you tell that 1600mhz can run at slower speeds also, not doubting it id just rather know so i could look at something myself and work it out... cheers!
 
The motherboard is an Foxconn A7VMX-K which is a Micro-ATX board. Looking at the pic in that link, I can see the motherboard takes up the entire inside of the case so a regular ATX motherboard wont fit. This means you wont be able to get a mobo that can do crossfire/SLI also the case might not be big enough to house the bigger graphics card.

Any chance you can check on the case to see if its got a make or manufacturer and model number?
 
Vasily87 said:
How can you tell that 1600mhz can run at slower speeds also, not doubting it id just rather know so i could look at something myself and work it out... cheers!
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Memmory DIMMS have inbuilt controllers that tell the motherboard what voltage and speed they run at. For example 1.5V running at 1600Mhz. You can manually change the speed of the memory in the BIOS.

These days when you buy memory and plug it into your motherboard, you dont need to do anything the motherboard does all the work for you and adjusts the settings as needed. Like I said before get 1600Mhz DDR3 ram.

Now get me the make/manufacturer model of that case so I can find a motherboard for you :) Also what's your budget for the mobo, ram and graphics card?
 
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pff depends on christmas, about 300 id hope maybe a stretch further. I dont need to do it all at once thought but a plan definateley helps! would i be better to sell the pc and get a whole new setup?
 
Vasily87 said:
I can see screw holes about 40 mm below the card and about 15mm to the side for perhaps a bigger board. It is a pretty big case to be honest! The photos are here, not the best but worth a look http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/259/imag0204a.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/f/853/imag0207k.jpg/ hope these are of use!!
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I can see some screw holes at the bottom so an ATX case should fit :) To be on the safe side can you take a picture of the entire case with the side panel off.

So you need an AM3 ATX motherboard that supports DDR ram and I would say a 6950 2GB graphics card. What's your budget?

Vasily87 said:
pff depends on christmas, about 300 id hope maybe a stretch further. I dont need to do it all at once thought but a plan definateley helps! would i be better to sell the pc and get a whole new setup?
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Not for £300. If you want to play BF3 you need three things, a decent CPU, 8GB of ram and at least a 6950 2GB card. You'll be aplying at High settings but let me find a mobo and cpu...
 
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Motherboard, Memory and Graphics card. Your current CPU is only a dual core, to get the most bang from your buck I think your should get a quad core CPU like this. What PSU have you got?

AS you can see this is going to set you back more than £300. Unfortunately our current rig doesn't give us much room to work with.
 
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so the possibility of unlocking cores isnt viable, i was hoping it would help out a bit? Like i said i could do it a bit at a time ie. graphics card and then at a later date get the mobo ram cpu etc... its a 450w psu again, not up to much... looks like its getting sold lol!
 
Vasily87 said:
so the possibility of unlocking cores isnt viable, i was hoping it would help out a bit? Like i said i could do it a bit at a time ie. graphics card and then at a later date get the mobo ram cpu etc... its a 450w psu again, not up to much... looks like its getting sold lol!
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You'll need a new PSU aswell then. Just sell it and use the money to get a new rig.
 
fantatstic! ebay will be visited shortly, whats the best options for a new rig then and a price scale? bearing in mind i need an o/s aswell now although i have windows vista on another old base unit but i would be aswell selling it too!
 
First can a Mod move this to General Hardware, it will help the OP with more relevant replies.

To play BF3 at say 1080P at around 60FPS with High settings your looking at around £500 all in. I'll see what I can spec...
 
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