I need some RAM!

[kaioshade]

Be careful when upgrading your ram. While it does not have to be the same brand, be careful of mixing latencies with your memory. Most of the time it will be fine, but depending on the board / brand of ram, etc there can be some problems with mixing ram brands/types.

[Alpha]

Be careful when upgrading your ram. While it does not have to be the same brand, be careful of mixing latencies with your memory. Most of the time it will be fine, but depending on the board / brand of ram, etc there can be some problems with mixing ram brands/types.

What do you mean by latencies? What kind of latencies?

[Gryph]

Cas is the latency (if I recall correctly). Make sure they're the same Cas so in your case it would be 5.

[kaioshade]

Cas is the latency (if I recall correctly). Make sure they're the same Cas so in your case it would be 5.

 

Exactly. In simple terms, the cas latency is how fast the ram interacts with the memory controller on your motherboard. Lower means less latency, and so faster performance. 5 is pretty much standard for cas latency on ddr2 ram, 4 is even better and 3 is the best although that can get VERY expensive. Some budget ram is also at cas latency 6, but do not bother with those sets.

[ken_cinder]

2gb of ram isp retty good for most computing tasks. More is always nicer, but unless you are running a 64 bit operating system you cant take advantage of more than 4gb of ram.

 

fixed.

 

Nothing to fix. 3-3.5 gb is the limit for 32 bit operating systems.

 

Go install 4 gb of ram on your system than load a 32 bit os and print a screen shot of how much ram is showing up.

 

WRONG, the Reaper Man has it right. 4GB is the address limit in 32 bit operating systems (At least Windows that is), if you have expansion cards and other hardware, you will lose address space inside that 4GB limit to those pieces of hardware. ALL 32 bit hardware is memory mapped and thus uses a RAM address space, 16 bit (Or legacy) hardware works in different ways.

The less expansion hardware you have, the more address space available to physical RAM in the 4GB space.

You could theoretically have that full 4GB available (Or very close to it) if you had absolutely no expansion hardware, including no video card/chip.

[hairytash]

Hi Gamecop - Reviewed the thread including the grabs of CPU-Z which i would have recommended too.

 

If youre looking at playing more modern games then 2GB is gonna be about what you need - youll only notice more if you need to alt-tab to the desktop frequently.

 

I would personally go with Patriot ram here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820220144 I have 4GB of this ram in my system. (for those interested 3.25GB is usable after a windows load and i have Graphics and sound cards 2 Sata drives and usb installed)

 

Your choice then is either to run at the same latencies as the ram you already have installed or better still imo pull the existing ram out and run the new stuff at the lower latencies, Intel based systems are more responsive at lower latencies, whereas AMD seem to prefer more grunt (Mhz).

 

In order to run at the lower latencies youll probably have to go into bios and set the cas latencies manually to 4-4-4-12, but thats a simple enough thing.

 

Although im running a quad core q6600, my hard drive is nothing special but in a multiplayer game, Im one of the first into game after a map change, so the ram keeps up and suits me fine.

 

One final point to note is that the Patriot ram comes with a lifetime guarantee, not that i think thered be cause to use it

Edited November 26, 2007 by hairytash

[kaioshade]

2gb of ram isp retty good for most computing tasks. More is always nicer, but unless you are running a 64 bit operating system you cant take advantage of more than 4gb of ram.

 

fixed.

 

Nothing to fix. 3-3.5 gb is the limit for 32 bit operating systems.

 

Go install 4 gb of ram on your system than load a 32 bit os and print a screen shot of how much ram is showing up.

 

WRONG, the Reaper Man has it right. 4GB is the address limit in 32 bit operating systems (At least Windows that is), if you have expansion cards and other hardware, you will lose address space inside that 4GB limit to those pieces of hardware. ALL 32 bit hardware is memory mapped and thus uses a RAM address space, 16 bit (Or legacy) hardware works in different ways.

The less expansion hardware you have, the more address space available to physical RAM in the 4GB space.

You could theoretically have that full 4GB available (Or very close to it) if you had absolutely no expansion hardware, including no video card/chip.

 

And since almost everyone has expansion hardware its a moot point. i have yet to see someone have all 4gb useable with 32bit. im talking about practical use. hence why i said 3-3.5gb it depends.

[Alpha]

Hi Gamecop - Reviewed the thread including the grabs of CPU-Z which i would have recommended too.

 

If youre looking at playing more modern games then 2GB is gonna be about what you need - youll only notice more if you need to alt-tab to the desktop frequently.

 

I would personally go with Patriot ram here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820220144 I have 4GB of this ram in my system. (for those interested 3.25GB is usable after a windows load and i have Graphics and sound cards 2 Sata drives and usb installed)

 

Your choice then is either to run at the same latencies as the ram you already have installed or better still imo pull the existing ram out and run the new stuff at the lower latencies, Intel based systems are more responsive at lower latencies, whereas AMD seem to prefer more grunt (Mhz).

 

In order to run at the lower latencies youll probably have to go into bios and set the cas latencies manually to 4-4-4-12, but thats a simple enough thing.

 

Although im running a quad core q6600, my hard drive is nothing special but in a multiplayer game, Im one of the first into game after a map change, so the ram keeps up and suits me fine.

 

One final point to note is that the Patriot ram comes with a lifetime guarantee, not that i think thered be cause to use it

Well, my current 1GB of ram with two 512mb sticks have a Cas Latency of 5. Wouldn't it conflict with this Patriot ram since it has a Cas Latency of 5? Remember, I do want 3GB of ram, not 2GB, so I'm not going to remove the current ram in the system and put completely new ram. I'm also running on an AMD system, not an Intel.

[Gryph]

I think it should be fine and dandy if the cas and timings are the same.

[hairytash]

All should be fine m8 - the patriot ram has other profiles one of which is 5-5-5-15, in fact the ram actually defaults to that setting.

 

Ive mismatched ram before now (as long as theyre paired still) and the bios just auto selects the slowest compatible timings accross the 2 speeds.

[ben2dx]

yeah i just upgraded from 512mb to 1gb yesterday and i have pc2100!!!