DDR2 or DDr3 for a new build

[gazfocus]

I am looking into building a Core i7 system for a company I'm starting doing Web Development. I will be buying a minimum of 6GB Ram for the machine (maybe more) but is there much advantage of buying DDR3 over DDR2? Are there any websites that have comparisons?

Obviously, this decision will impact the choice of Motherboard as well so it's fairly important I make the right choice.

Thanks in advance.

 

[D D Danneh]

If you're buying core i7 you NEED to buy DDR3. The motherboards won't take DDR2. Make sure it's triple channel DDR3 too, the dual channel DDR3 runs at higher voltages which aren't compatible.

Also, spec-for-spec, DDR3 and DDR2 are about equal. Theoretically, DDR3 should be much better performance, but instead, it gives about a 5-10% increase in performance.

But DDR3 can also run at much faster speeds than DDR2. Generally, DDR2 comes in 800MHz and 1066MHz sticks. DDR3 comes in at up to 2000MHz sticks, which would definitely provide a performance benefit over 1066MHz DDR2.

A few months ago I'd have said don't bother with DDR3. It was way too expensive for the slight performance boost it gave and unless you really needed i7, I'd have stayed away, but now, DDR3 is only slightly more expensive than DDR2 (for a regular kit), so the price is negligible.

 

[gazfocus]

Thanks. I didn't realist that the core i7 boards didn't take DDR2. That settles it then