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DDR2 vs DDR3
Hello all. Anyone know whether I should bother upgrading my fast 4 gigs of DDR2 for 8 gigs of DDR3? I have a killer duo core pent and a kill (280 Nvidia) so all I would need to buy would be a motherboard and the ram. Should I see a different if I did?
Tryed researching on the net but only things I was able to find were very old comparisons and reveiws. (2007-2008)
Thanks all, game till you bleed
King of the world
Comments
THeres no need for you to spend the money on trying to go from DDR2 to DDR3.
If I read your post right, you have a dual core pentium?
If you do, I'd spend the money on upgrading your CPU instead.
Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz
MSI X58 Platinum SLI
G.Skill PI Black 3x2GB DDR3-1600
Western Digital CB 500GBx3 Riad-5
VisionTek HD 4870 X2
Corsair 1000HX
Ok, thanks for imput. My current processor is Intell Core 2 Duo E8400. No complaints about my system as it's fairly scokum. But I just upgrade every year and was wondering if I would gain anything by getting faster ram. But I get the impression I should hang losse for awhile.
King of the world
For what purpose do you use your comp??? and at what resolution are you/will you play at most of the time?? Whats your budget???
The effect of going from a good DDR2 (being 800 or 1066mhz) to DDR3 would be VERY little. Many people have gained as little as 2% FPS in games. The loading times would alos be barely effected. The jump from 4gigs to 8gigs would also mean very little. Last year, I upgraded from 4 to 8, and the difference was not noticable in any application. It rarely uses even 3 gigs of my ram during heavy gaming, and I literally need to open 3 games simitaneously to start to fill up my ram. And then the games are not playable, because my video card and CPU are crapping themselves. Long story short? Stick with the 4gigs of ram, and maybe look into gaming accessories, rather than computer upgrades. If you have a good FPS in everything you play, you might just want to enhance your enjoyment of gaming with a gaming mouse, gaming keyboard, gamepad, or hell, maybe even a Novint Falcon. I dream about buying a Novint Falcon, but so few games support it... Still, the dream lives on, lol.
what do you run 64 bit 32 bit,is it w7,vista,xp
in most situation disregarding any of the info i asked
you would be better off buying the nfastest ssd out there and raid it to your existing hardrive
intel x25e if i recal is the fastest speed demon on the planet
for but with 4 gig of ram assumign your using vista 32
you ll only acces 3.20 gig or so the rest get lost
with 3.2 gig you can diable the virtual memory ,the thing that use your hard drive has memory
and there just doing that make a big difference
you got to understand microsoft any window version is very locked from the factory
its vey easy to gain 30 % boost in performance with all the tune up avail
so if your suppose to get say 10 mb/sec trough cable when microsoft is finish you often only get 7 or 8 mb/sec whatever you do lol
i wont go in detail what to do but there are ton of good info online
and dont forget to scn game you dodwnload ,i eard one of the most loved game in f2p has a virus on it that was never removed
and dont listen to gamer who say ho that one isnt a big deal
a virus is a virus ,virus being dormant just mean the guy that has the virus just wait the right moment to hurt the most person possible
i removed tcos from my computer for that reason too much unknown not enough correction from make (aklainm)of the game
one they correct the issue know by everybody i ll dgo back probably but not before
its not my fault if akliam isnt remooving or repairing those issue
If you justr have money burning a hole in your pocket it would be stretching your system's life span longer, but as stated the noticable difference in DDR2 vs DDR3 is so minimal right now due to mostly software limitations. The return on investment wouldn't be worth it in my opinion. If you play more demanding games I would recommend another 280 in SLI before any RAM change. The 8400 is a good chip and with tinkering can be OC'ed very well. What MoBo do you have out of curiosity?
You guys are giving clueless solutions to his problem : )
Ok everyone thanks a ton for taking the time to give imput. I run Vista 32 and acually have no problems at all with any games. I always turn up settings to the max. (Whats the point of playing any game at clunky settings?) Even EQ2 at highest settings runs fine. I curently play Eve but am going to try Aion today, and basically have played every online game out there. I have a Viewsonic 26 inch and it is sweetness. I just look to have basically the best gaming computer every year, and even though money isn't the main consideration, I sure don't want to spend 10K to pick up 3% speed inprovment. Tried duo sli video cards when they first came out with it but turned into a can of worms. I'm not that computer savay and just play games. I definatly get the impression from all your imput to forget about even upgrading at this time. That helps me a lot so I can just forget about it and spend my money on something else. haa haa
King of the world
I would wait for new games to come out that have such a large footprint that DDR3 is needed. Mabe with the next batch of games it will be, but not right now.
Also, Win7(32) can use 8 gigs of ram. I would at least wait a couple months till then and new stuff comes out as well.
You might want to get Vista 64 first, and then in another year think about upgrading the system. Even better, if you get Vista 64 now, you can upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released for free.
The ancer is acually very simple... NO you wont notice hardly any differance at all in anything...
1st off if your not running a 64 bit OP.. it wont register anything over 3.2 gig of ram anyway..
2nd the only way anything needs more then 4 gig is if you plan on running several different programs at the same time.. and you simply dont have the processer or enough grafix to do that..
3rd the differance between ddr2 and dd3 is really very small...
so in all honesty .. if you want to upgrade go ahead but don't expect to notice much of a change..
that or save your money and upgrade next year to an i7 or a good phenom with the new windows7
Hi,
As a previous poster wrote you could try SSD drives for the operating system and / or gaming drive. Also you could install Vista or Seven 64 bits for a "better" use of your memory ( ram + video see this article http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista/ )
Good thought.....but when you want to play at 1080P + your E8400 & their motherboards will start acting like a bottleneck.....not coz of its processing ability....but coz it won't support DDR3s.....and a DDR3 (atleast the 1333mhz ones and above) are better than the DDR2s in EVERY imaginable way possible....a 2GB DDR3 1333 Mhz is recommended ANY day over a 4 GB 800Mhz DDR2....
Please let me know if you need any help...although for present gaming (especially MMOs) you won't need a upgrade...atleast for the next 6 months (2 years in case of MMOs)...Ofcourse I am assuming you are gonna play at higher resolutions...
Your present config is decent enough to play any game at the moment....However, you'll start feeling the pinch once Doom 4 and Crysis 2 are out....everyone will start QQing then.
The GTX 280 is/was fine...but the 285 is better (although Overpriced..when you consider the cost performance ratio in comparison to the TwinFrozr GTX 275 or the 4890s)....just wait for 9 more months and go for a totally new config...
Your config in the end depends on what resolution you intend to play on and if you have a tight budget (logical thought) and if money isn't the issue...spend the spare money on poor people?? (jking :P)
P.S....I dunno whats the logic going on when people say...hardly ANY difference between a DDR3 and a DDR2...to me the DDR3s are ATLEAST better coz they are future proof/ upgradeable....too lazy to explain the rest...so just stated the simplest reason.
Really...win7 32 bit can use more ram? I was debating on either getting the 32 or 64 bit version. Since the 'upgrade' version of Win7 is quite a bit cheaper than the full version. But if someone can confirm that 32 bit can use more than the vista/xp 3.5 gig...then I am set.
As for the OP...if ya wanna goto 8 gig...stick with what ya have now. Can easily get a couple gigs of DDR2 for cheap. I only use 4 gigs n rarely see my PC slow down or stall in any of the current games...I think 8 gig would be serious overkill, unless you play multiple games at once.
A 32 bit operating system is only capable of addressing ~4gigs of ram, no matter how you slice it. So no, if Windows 7 32 is actually a 32 bit system, it CANNOT address 8 gigs of ram, as it is just not mathematically possible.
Good thought.....but when you want to play at 1080P + your E8400 & their motherboards will start acting like a bottleneck.....not coz of its processing ability....but coz it won't support DDR3s.....and a DDR3 (atleast the 1333mhz ones and above) are better than the DDR2s in EVERY imaginable way possible....a 2GB DDR3 1333 Mhz is recommended ANY day over a 4 GB 800Mhz DDR2....
Please let me know if you need any help...although for present gaming (especially MMOs) you won't need a upgrade...atleast for the next 6 months (2 years in case of MMOs)...Ofcourse I am assuming you are gonna play at higher resolutions...
Your present config is decent enough to play any game at the moment....However, you'll start feeling the pinch once Doom 4 and Crysis 2 are out....everyone will start QQing then.
The GTX 280 is/was fine...but the 285 is better (although Overpriced..when you consider the cost performance ratio in comparison to the TwinFrozr GTX 275 or the 4890s)....just wait for 9 more months and go for a totally new config...
Your config in the end depends on what resolution you intend to play on and if you have a tight budget (logical thought) and if money isn't the issue...spend the spare money on poor people?? (jking :P)
P.S....I dunno whats the logic going on when people say...hardly ANY difference between a DDR3 and a DDR2...to me the DDR3s are ATLEAST better coz they are future proof/ upgradeable....too lazy to explain the rest...so just stated the simplest reason.
Will DDR3 be better, yes in the long run, but for now there is no advantage with 99% of current softwares to go from a DDR2 to DDR3 system. Besides I dont think the E8500 will recognize DDR3, or at least not fully.
See article: http://anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989&p=7 DDR2 vs DDR3... less than 1% gain
If you are building a new system go with DDR3, if you want to upgrade from DDR2 to DDR3, dont waste you moneis lol
Good thought.....but when you want to play at 1080P + your E8400 & their motherboards will start acting like a bottleneck.....not coz of its processing ability....but coz it won't support DDR3s.....and a DDR3 (atleast the 1333mhz ones and above) are better than the DDR2s in EVERY imaginable way possible....a 2GB DDR3 1333 Mhz is recommended ANY day over a 4 GB 800Mhz DDR2....
Please let me know if you need any help...although for present gaming (especially MMOs) you won't need a upgrade...atleast for the next 6 months (2 years in case of MMOs)...Ofcourse I am assuming you are gonna play at higher resolutions...
Your present config is decent enough to play any game at the moment....However, you'll start feeling the pinch once Doom 4 and Crysis 2 are out....everyone will start QQing then.
The GTX 280 is/was fine...but the 285 is better (although Overpriced..when you consider the cost performance ratio in comparison to the TwinFrozr GTX 275 or the 4890s)....just wait for 9 more months and go for a totally new config...
Your config in the end depends on what resolution you intend to play on and if you have a tight budget (logical thought) and if money isn't the issue...spend the spare money on poor people?? (jking :P)
P.S....I dunno whats the logic going on when people say...hardly ANY difference between a DDR3 and a DDR2...to me the DDR3s are ATLEAST better coz they are future proof/ upgradeable....too lazy to explain the rest...so just stated the simplest reason.
Will DDR3 be better, yes in the long run, but for now there is no advantage with 99% of current softwares to go from a DDR2 to DDR3 system. Besides I dont think the E8500 will recognize DDR3, or at least not fully.
See article: http://anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2989&p=7 DDR2 vs DDR3... less than 1% gain
If you are building a new system go with DDR3, if you want to upgrade from DDR2 to DDR3, dont waste you moneis lol
One question....why is DDR3 performace judged based on how it performs on core 2 duos? ^_^
Try the AMD AM3s...you'll know what I'm talking about
...or the i7s if you are THAT hungry.
Either way...DDR3s are better...period
In tripple channel, yes, they are a decent gain (still not much though, in the grand scheme of things) but if you are not doing tripple channel, DDR3 wont give you a huge boost, no matter what your running.
No. Instead use your money on a faster harddrive. A SSD will speed up things more than the memorys, the big bottleneck in modern computers are the harddrives.
I use 4 Raided intel X-25 myself but even one SSD will increase the operating speed of you computer a lot, and it is totaly silent too
Get a 80gb Intel X25, and install the Os and all games on it. You can still use your old harddrive to have your music and movies on.
DDR3 is faster than DDR2 but it is not the best use of the money. The thing that really slows any computer down is the fact that it constantly reads from a slow harddrive.
No. Instead use your money on a faster harddrive. A SSD will speed up things more than the memorys, the big bottleneck in modern computers are the harddrives.
I use 4 Raided intel X-25 myself but even one SSD will increase the operating speed of you computer a lot, and it is totaly silent too
Get a 80gb Intel X25, and install the Os and all games on it. You can still use your old harddrive to have your music and movies on.
DDR3 is faster than DDR2 but it is not the best use of the money. The thing that really slows any computer down is the fact that it constantly reads from a slow harddrive.
lol....second that : )....Try western digital caviar black....and I still think DDR3 is a better buy now if you are changing the mobo...(I think its pointless continuing this thread.....the OP is resting??)
So I read an interesting article about this limitation here:
http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm
Although a 32 bit OS is by definition limited to 4GB apparently it can use PAE to work with > 4GB ram in 32 bit mode with no performance or compatibility problems. It's simply disabled in 32 bit Windows for some reason, and tricky to enable but doable. So it could be possible for Win7 32bit to be using PAE to get more than 4GB ram.
Taken from Everest Ultimate Edition
Thumbnails, linked to full size picture
Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz
MSI X58 Platinum SLI
G.Skill PI Black 3x2GB DDR3-1600
Western Digital CB 500GBx3 Riad-5
VisionTek HD 4870 X2
Corsair 1000HX
Hard to find direct comparison between DDR2 and newer low latency DD3 in real world performance but you can pretty much extrapolate using some of the older data like from here.
Here you can see 800 CL3 is just about as fast as 1333 CL9 due to the latency, and 1067 CL4 is pretty quick.
Gaming relevance:
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=3589&p=6
http://www.guru3d.com/article/ocz-blade-ddr3-2000-cas7-memory-review/12
Guru3d's benches are always good to read to me because they are one of the few sites that test parts at the actual high settings you would play at so you can see what difference they would make. Most sites test CPUs and such at lowest settings and watch the i7 blow everything out of the water but it's all theoretical performance because once you put the settings back up the game is no faster than on a Phenom II because the GPU always becomes the bottleneck unless you have a crazy SLI setup.
So you can see at low resolution the memory speed matters more but at higher settings it's not very noticable difference, except Anandtech points out that the minimum framerate is better even though the average framerate changes little. This makes sense as a big delay is moving textures from hard drive to ram to video RAM when new textures need to be loaded and is the noticeable chunkiness as you enter a new area. This doesn't happen often enough to effect the avg rate much and is the similar benefit you get from using an SSD as well (higher min rates).
8 gigs are hardly needed for any mmo that I have heard off. I have 8 gigs and runs Vista 64 bit. Remember that 32 bit only used 3.2 gigs no matter how much you put in.
Also I don't think DDR3 gives you value for money. DDR2 can easily run all mmos.
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CASUAL CONFESSIONS - Draccan's blog
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8 gigs are hardly needed for any mmo that I have heard off. I have 8 gigs and runs Vista 64 bit. Remember that 32 bit only used 3.2 gigs no matter how much you put in.
Also I don't think DDR3 gives you value for money. DDR2 can easily run all mmos.
I must have read some bad information somewhere.....just get 16 gigs of ram and use PAE to enable a ramdrive and load the whole game in that.
Otherwise get Win7 64