DDR2 vs DDR3. advice anyone?

[bigdave]

Hey, been planning to build a new pc but holding off til Intel release the new 45nm Quad cores in Q1 2008 but i got a dilemma.

Is there much point in buying DDR3 at the moment since DDR2 CAS latency is so much better?
I wanna plan for the future too and DDR3 is a bit on the expensive side and I heard the Combo DDR2/DDR3 arent too gd from reviews.

So I got two options:

buy a inexpensive motherboard that supports DDR2 and the new Quads and upgrade to a DDR3 motherboard later (4 or 5 years later)

or

buy an expensive motherboard with expensive ram only to discover that theres gonna be better priced and better performance ram two years down the line and wasted pretty much £130

 

[SBD]

Don't even think about DDR3 ram atm. Costs way too much just get 4Gb of DDR2 the Crucial Ballistix are very good for the cash. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-090-CR&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

 

[stevenazari1]

well your talking about upgrading your mobo once every 4 or 5 years and ddr2 ram isnt new technology, by then it probably wont even be available from shops so you'll have to scrap the ram and the mobo if you get ddr3 ram now in 4 or 5 years you can still get better ram but by then technology will no doubt moved onto ddr4

 

[Robert]

DDR3 is pointless at the moment.

 

[bigdave]

lol, cheers guys. thought that myself to be honest but thought i'd ask you guys first.

and what are you on about? Some online shops still sell SDR ram although not much of a selection

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=8&subid=400

so looks like i'm gonna be getting a decent mobo with 4 gigs. got another question. if i am to get the new E8xxx series, how will i choose the best ram cause i heard your supposed to match the Mhz or something like that. very confusing :S

 

[leon4112]

it depends on how much you wanna oc your cpu with the new 8400 8500 your gonna be reaching the limit of what ddr2 can do when you push these new cpus!!

read this if your intrested

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01...ency_shootout/page2.html#to_buy_or_not_to_buy

From toms hardware guide

"We've said it before and we have no problem repeating that the best reason to buy DDR3 now is to remove any CPU overclocking limitations imposed by slower RAM. Anyone considering insanely-priced DDR2-1200 or faster modules will find better value in several DDR3-1333 devices."

 

[bigdave]

it depends on how much you wanna oc your cpu with the new 8400 8500 your gonna be reaching the limit of what ddr2 can do when you push these new cpus!!

gonna get a E8400 and overclocking to 3.5Ghz or 4Ghz but er.... never overclocked in my life and probably wont until this comp is on its last legs. might change my mind if theres a huge benefit.

 

[stoofa]

I'm using DDR3 - mainly because I get some really good pricing on Crucial stuff.
However it certainly is a lot more expensive than DDR2 and really doesn't offer that much more - a few more points in the benchmark of your choice but that is about it.
I mainly did it because now in the future I'll only have to do a motherboard & CPU upgrade and not worry about RAM.

 

[Lightnix]

I'd say get DDR2. It's cheap, often it overclocks really well, often bog standard PC2-6400 will reach 450Mhz (900Mhz) which is enough to push an E8400 to 4Ghz.