Planing the move to DDR3

Van Diemen · 28 Feb 2008 at 14:15

I think its time I move over to DDR3, I don't see the prices dropping too dramatically in the next couple of months or so. I'm sure prices will drop, but not substantially enough to make a huge difference. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I would like 4GB or more. So far, price wise & spec wise the following kit is under consideration:
Patriot 2GB PC3-12800 Viper Extreme Performance (2x1GB)

Suggestions on boards is also required. I was thinking Asus Maximus Extreme, (I'm fed up of waiting for the Rampage Extreme)

I will definitely upgrade board & CPU when Nehalem arrives, I would like to carry the DDR3 I buy now over to Nehalem, then no more upgrades for a whole year. (besides maybe GPU)

Should I be looking at higher spec RAM, or will PC3-12800 be enough for Nehalem?
Any other boards or kits I should consider?

all help appreciated.

crazyDAJT · 28 Feb 2008 at 17:39

i wouldn't bother going 4 DDR3, thats probably about £300 worth of upgrade!! just on the ram!!

from what i have heard its really worth it at all.

DDR3 has bean out for well over a year now, if it was really that good it would have bean flying of the shelves and the manufactures would have shifted DDR3 over DDR2. which would mean it would have sent DDR2 prices up (just look at DDR1 prices now) and sent DDR3 to a shade above them.

DDR2 have done nothing but go down and down.

give it a year or 3 then make the switch.

Edit:

2GB of DDR1 = £68.41 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-006-OK&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=481 400MHz stuff
2GB of DDR2 = £24.08 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813 800MHz stuff

eggnoodle · 28 Feb 2008 at 18:09

Gigabyte x38t dq6 mobo for the win!

Richdog · 28 Feb 2008 at 18:55

Why on earth do you think it's time ot move to DDR3? Sensible explanation please?

Van Diemen · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:27

The way I see things is, I'll have to move over to DDR3 eventually & I know Nehalem is a year away I don't see DDR3 prices coming down much between now & then.

Prices for DDR3 when compared to DDR2 look very high/expensive, but to be honest, just a little over a year ago a decent 2GB kit of DDR2 had a price tag of around £250, so in contrast DDR3 is not that expensive.

But this is in no way a done deal. I'm more than happy to listen to arguments for and against. I still have many questions. Is the performance gain worth the extra cash? is there a performance gain? etc,, etc..

MoRT489 · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:32

For you people who dont see DDR3 coming down in price, bare in mind that DDR2 was £160 for 2gb not so long ago (summer '06) and 1.5yrs later its at rock bottom. Given that DDR3 has been out nearly a yr i'd give it a while and wait for the drop. The performance increase is said to be minimal so spend the saved £300 on a second gfx card and some pizza!

james.miller · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:32

the argument, is that ddr2 is cheaper lol. future cores wont make a lot of difference, because you can almost guarantee that either the current ddr2 boards will also support them or that both the ddr2 and ddr3 boards will need upgrading. after all, they are the same chipsets.

about performance, no it most certainly isnt worth the gains, not that there are much right now.

Richdog · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:33

Van Diemen said:
The way I see things is, I'll have to move over to DDR3 eventually & I know Nehalem is a year away I don't see DDR3 prices coming down much between now & then.

Prices for DDR3 when compared to DDR2 look very high/expensive, but to be honest, just a little over a year ago a decent 2GB kit of DDR2 had a price tag of around £250, so in contrast DDR3 is not that expensive.

But this is in no way a done deal. I'm more than happy to listen to arguments for and against. I still have many questions. Is the performance gain worth the extra cash? is there a performance gain? etc,, etc..

Of course DDR3 will come down in price when it becomes mainstream... what on earth would you make you think anything otherwise? DDR came down... so did DDR 2...

DDR3 is currently a pointless expense, you would have to be genuinely mad to go for it at this stage with 4GB of DDR2 high quality costing £60. Mad.

crazyDAJT · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:38

Im going to skip DDR3 and go straight to DDR4.

DDR3 is so slow on the uptake. there is relay no point.

£300 for DDR3, you could get 20GB of good DDR2 for that!

kleox64 · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:41

Intel said 2009 will be the year for DDR3, thats when prices will drop as Intel will be pushing it into the mainstream. DDR2 prices will climb slowly from now as prices must go up eventually( manufactures are making a loss believe or not).

I suggest people bulk up on DDR2 memory sometime in march when X48 appears.

clv101 · 28 Feb 2008 at 19:49

Totally pointless move. Don't waste your money.

Can you seriously not think of anything better in your life to spend the money on?

Your suggestion that DDR3 prices won't come down much is just nonsense. Look at the price history for every other memory type over the last 20 years.

Van Diemen · 28 Feb 2008 at 20:20

thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

& thank you for scratching that "Lets upgrade" itch I had

w3bbo · 28 Feb 2008 at 22:38

I'm gonna throw a spanner in the works here.

Imo your unwise to go for ddr2 these days IF you are buying a whole new rig. If you are simply wanting to upgrade and buy faster ddr2 ram then its a bargain and I would recommend it over buying ddr3 simply for the performance upgrade as the differences cannot be warrented for the difference in price.

It will however be obsolete come the next socket revision (next year). DDR3 is little more than DDR2 was this time last year or so ago. Its not that DDR3 is expensive, its that DDR2 is so cheap. There is a reason its so cheap, clearance of stockpile. I certainly wouldn't buy a new motherboard just to have the luxury of ddr3 but I would certainly buy ddr3 IF I was building a whole new rig. Why base your purchases on yesterdays tech?

MoRT489 · 29 Feb 2008 at 06:42

w3bbo said:
Why base your purchases on yesterdays tech?

because there is no real benefit in buying the new tech over "yestersday's tech" in terms of speed/ocing and it costs so little it really wont matter if u lose £30 on a 2GB set of DDR2 with a potential saving of £100 on DDR3 by the time it becomes mainstream.

kleox64 · 29 Feb 2008 at 16:57

DDR3 wont become mainstream until 2009-2010. The intel socket change is due Q1 2009, by then DDR3 will be a lot cheaper not mainstream eg 4GB 1600MH kits around the £200-£250 mark.

kleox64 · 29 Feb 2008 at 17:00

creed said:
because there is no real benefit in buying the new tech over "yestersday's tech" in terms of speed/ocing and it costs so little it really wont matter if u lose £30 on a 2GB set of DDR2 with a potential saving of £100 on DDR3 by the time it becomes mainstream.

exactly, to put it into perspective you will lose more money on buying DDR3 now than getting a 2/4GB DDR2 kit. You can use the DDR2 memory somewhere else in an old machine, media server, test PC or something.

Richdog · 29 Feb 2008 at 18:15

w3bbo said:
I'm gonna throw a spanner in the works here.

Imo your unwise to go for ddr2 these days IF you are buying a whole new rig. If you are simply wanting to upgrade and buy faster ddr2 ram then its a bargain and I would recommend it over buying ddr3 simply for the performance upgrade as the differences cannot be warrented for the difference in price.

It will however be obsolete come the next socket revision (next year). DDR3 is little more than DDR2 was this time last year or so ago. Its not that DDR3 is expensive, its that DDR2 is so cheap. There is a reason its so cheap, clearance of stockpile. I certainly wouldn't buy a new motherboard just to have the luxury of ddr3 but I would certainly buy ddr3 IF I was building a whole new rig. Why base your purchases on yesterdays tech?

You haven't thrown a spanner in the works, just provided a rather redundant argument. DDR2 will be around for a while yet, it will last a good year at least. There is no need to upgrade to DD3 for a while yet, all the top mobo chipsets and CPU's still support it.

Nehalem will be the only reason to upgrade to DDR3, and that may well be in 2009 now.

helmutcheese · 29 Feb 2008 at 18:35

DDR2 was out long before it got uptook well, at 400mhz and then 533mhz.

2 weeks ago they said DDR3 will fall in price real soon.

Some new Chipsets wont support DDR2, so far the 790I does not and we all know the X48 is a Cherrypicked X38 and some do support DDR2 like the Preoder Asus here.

DDR2 just has fell to a price than even SDRAM or DDR did not sell at current life.

Yellowbeard · 29 Feb 2008 at 19:34

helmutcheese said:
DDR2 was out long before it got uptook well, at 400mhz and then 533mhz.

Good point. This entire discussion is exactly like what went on at the front end of DDR2. However, AMD was very strong at the time and did not immediately migrate to DDR2 so, DDR1 had a good bit of life left in it. DDR1 still sells fairly well.

Currently, Intel is MUCH stronger than AMD and Intel is moving to to DDR3. So, it's entirely possible that DDR3 adoption will take place more quickly than DDR2 due to the popularity of the platforms that use it.

Also, people in many cases make their arguments against a new technology based on some incorrect assumptions. They forget that not everyone upgrades for the same reasons. Your bleeding edge adventurous types are already all over DDR3. They are admittedly a minority but, they also do not use the same criteria when selecting the parts they will upgrade to.

Richdog · 29 Feb 2008 at 19:36

Yellowbeard said:
Your bleeding edge adventurous types are already all over DDR3. They are admittedly a minority but, they also do not use the same criteria when selecting the parts they will upgrade to.

Not all bleeding edge adventurous types have a complete lack of sense... they are a minority even among enthusiasts. I know many beleeding edgers who won't bother upgrading to DDR3 for some time unless given it free... there's simply no point.