minimum ram for q6600?

beano

beano

beano

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I'm building a new system with an Asus p5k dlx and q6600 processor... My friend has 4gigs of ddr2 5300 ram that i can have, and i was just wandering if this would run the system!?!

The last pc i built was an old amd 500mb job, so i'm probably going to be asking a lot of stupid question :o lol!
 
From what I understand the Q6600 will need PC4200 or higher (obviously PC4200 will leave little to no room for overclocking though). I don't think there's a minimum amount of RAM of you can have with the CPU, if that's what you're asking, although I would imagine less than 2GB wouldn't make much sense these days. As long as your friend's RAM is compatible with your motherboard you should be fine.
 
Thanks Kojak.

I'm not too worried about overclocking for the moment, i just want to get it up and running smoothly (as cheaply as possible lol). :D
 
Kojak is right, as the Q6600 runs on a 266Mhz quad-pumped FSB, you need at least 533Mhz DDR2, which is PC-4200.

For the marginal extra cost I'd be inclined to get at least PC-5300 (DDR2-667) as this would allow you to push the FSB up to 333Mhz in future, giving you a 3Ghz overclock at stock multiplier.
 
Thanks vertigo1. Looks like i'm in luck, as my mate has 4gig of pc 5300 which i can have for nothing, so that's definitely the route i'll take. :D

Just out of curiosity, would there be any noticeable difference in performance between the 4gig of pc 5300 and 2gig of pc2 8500? would the extra 2gig make up for the slower ram!?!

cheers
 
No mate - 4gb of ram will deffinatly beat 2gb :-)

its not like pc-4200 is slow anyway. let alone pc-5300!

and your one lucky guy by the looks of it! enjoy the rig
 
beano said:
Thanks vertigo1. Looks like i'm in luck, as my mate has 4gig of pc 5300 which i can have for nothing, so that's definitely the route i'll take. :D

Just out of curiosity, would there be any noticeable difference in performance between the 4gig of pc 5300 and 2gig of pc2 8500? would the extra 2gig make up for the slower ram!?!

cheers
Click to expand...

Because on an Intel system the memory is really at its most efficent when running in Sync mode, the speed of the RAM isn't really going to make that much difference in performance.
So at stock speed PC-5300 and PC-8500 are both going to be giving the CPU more than enough bandwidth.
The extra the "faster" RAM gives you is the ability to overclock your system further (if you so desire).
 
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