Re: RAM selection
- From: Albert Ross <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 16:53:17 +0100
On Thu, 10 May 2007 21:51:40 +0100, John Jordan <junk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Steve wrote:
I'm a bit confused.
From what I've read, an Intel CPU running at 800MHz FSB has a system
clock speed of 200MHz meaning that DDR2 RAM runs at 400MHz. I also
gather that this is best run in dual channel mode to get double the
transfer rate.
In which case, what is the advantage in having RAM faster than 400MHz
DDR2 (ie "PC3200").
There isn't much. Some video card and disk transfers will read and write
direct to memory without touching the FSB, but normally there's plenty
of free memory bandwidth. I'd be surprised if it made a measurable
difference unless your video card was an IGP or short on RAM.
In other words what gain, if any, is there in having 533MHz or 667Mhz
RAM when using 800MHz FSB CPUs? Is it simply that it might have lower
latency etc so have a better performance on access timings?
Latency is a function of frequency and timings, so 4-4-4 533MHz DDR2 has
the same latency as 5-5-5 667MHz DDR2.
Also sometimes you can run faster timings on the memory at slower bus
speeds, which further negates the miniscule difference.
Gets confusing fast, doesn;t it?
Ah yes, I think that's what you meant. :p
With Athlons I never found much advantage running the memory other
than at bus speed.
.
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