Would I see any improvement?

[Ice Rich]

Hi all,

Ive just purchased a cheap 512 IBM PC3200 DDR stick.

At the moment I have 512 ballistix running on my 3000+ @ 2250 rig.

Would I see any improvement if I installed the new ram. Is it likely I would have to drop my clock speed?

Thanks

 

[pastymuncher]

It may not run in dual channel and you may have to drop your clock speed initially but you should see some improvement as in things running and loading quicker. Dual channel needs identical sticks of ram supposedly. However, i have two sticks of PNY pc3200. One has Samsung chips that are supposed to run at 3-3-3-8@ddr400 and the other has Nanya chips that are supposed to run at 3-4-4-8@ddr400. With a bit of tweaking in the bios i can get them to run at the same speeds and timings, up to 217mhz they will run at 2.5-3-2-5 1T and will even go up to 250mhz (ddr500) with timings of 3-3-3-5 1T. So as you can see it may be worth going into your bios and adjusting the speed and timings to match your Ballstix and it might run in dual channel.

 

[Zefan]

Just as an example, my girlfriend's laptop wouldn't even load WoW with 256mb, but with another 512 stick it runs it without any sort of chugging :\. If it were 1gb - 2gb then maybe it'd be worth pondering about, but 512mb of RAM simply isn't enough nowadays.

 

[Ice Rich]

Thanks for replys,

IHowever, i have two sticks of PNY pc3200. One has Samsung chips that are supposed to run at 3-3-3-8@ddr400 and the other has Nanya chips that are supposed to run at 3-4-4-8@ddr400. With a bit of tweaking in the bios i can get them to run at the same speeds and timings, up to 217mhz they will run at 2.5-3-2-5 1T and will even go up to 250mhz (ddr500) with timings of 3-3-3-5 1T. So as you can see it may be worth going into your bios and adjusting the speed and timings to match your Ballstix and it might run in dual channel.

Interesting, I never realized you could use use different ram in dual channel...Im guessing though that same type RAM with different memory chips is the most extreme exception that you could do this with?? e.g a corsair stick and crucial would not work.

Rich

 

[pastymuncher]

When i first stuck them in together they defaulted to ddr333 and 2T with very slack timings. I knew they would run at the enhanced timings as i had them both in my 3700+ 754 rig so i just manually changed the timings and hey presto they work in dual channel. I was just as surprised as you because i was expecting to have to buy a new kit. Maybe it would work from different manufacturers. I mean, mine are both PNY but that means little when one has Nanya chips and the other Samsung. Both have different part numbers and the timing stated by the SPD's as revealed in CPU-z are quite different as well. Maybe it's just a case of setting them up the same in the bios.

 

[Ice Rich]

Maybe it's just a case of setting them up the same in the bios.

I hope so. I have some Mushkin Redline Memory coming this week (I never went with the IBM stuff) to work along my Ballistix. I'll let you know how I get on

 

[cokecan]

Thanks for replys,




Interesting, I never realized you could use use different ram in dual channel...Im guessing though that same type RAM with different memory chips is the most extreme exception that you could do this with?? e.g a corsair stick and crucial would not work.

Rich

in theory you should be able to run any 2 sticks of ram in dual channel, regardless of make or speed etc. it should just run dual channel at the slowest sticks speed (effectivly underclocking the fastest stick). i.e. 512mb 3200 and 512mb 2100. it should clock the 3200 stuff down to 266mhz (pc2100) to match the speed of the original PC2100 stuff

 

[FrostedNipple]

yes, you can do it, but you can end up having problems with booting if the sticks dont boot then u cant change it, if you want a nice smoothe system with no hick-ups just get the same ram!!!