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Ram timings with different speed dram chips

  • 24-06-2003 6:34pm
    #1
    Wavey
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭


    I read in my mobo manual that the Dram timings may need to be adjusted if you have two ram chips with different speeds.

    I have a 512mb pc2700 and i just added a 512mb pc 3200 chip and i havent noticed any noticable difference in performance.

    Could the ram timings in the bios be the problem?

    I am running a p4 2gig at 2.5 on an Abit mobo.

    Anybody got any ideas?


Comments

  • #2
    BigEejit
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,739 ✭✭✭BigEejit


    I think that the manufacturer was worried that you would add in PC2700 into a motherboard that had PC3200 ... (e.g. adding CL3 memory into a motherboard where the timings had been set as CL2)


  • #3
    Wavey
    Registered Users Posts: 861 ✭✭✭Wavey


    I see,

    But cant a DDR 533mhz motherboard take any speed ram up to 533?
    I have 333mhz and 400mhz ram chips and I would have thought that these would work fine together but there dosent seem to be feck all improvement.

    BTW Is it ram that increases game loading times?

    Would they work more efficiently together if I swapped the 3200 for another 2700?


  • #4
    MoSeS_.
    Registered Users Posts: 154 ✭✭MoSeS_.


    You can use task manager to check the memory usage of your machine in windows 2000

    ctrl + shift + escape

    go to the performance tab.

    The extra 512 megs will only improve performance if you are using over 512 megs of memory. Unless you have a load of apps open at once or are working with large images or video files you probably wouldn't go over 512 megs of memory.

    If memory usage is generally over 512 megs then adding an extra 512 will make a big difference as at that stage the hard drive is being used to supplement the RAM with "virtual memory"
    the hard drive is about 1000 - 10000 times slower (guessing here) than RAM.

    if you never go over 512 megs of used memory then the extra wont make a jot of difference. In fact you might be better off removing the slower RAM and adjusting the bios settings to suit the faster chip.

    Oh yes, nearly forgot, with the nForce chipset from nVidia a slight performance increase will be gained if you put a second stick of RAM in the appropriate DIMM slot. This doubles the memory bandwidth of the system, the performance gain in most situations however isn't as great as you might hope.

    I am not as au fait with P4 DDR chip sets, can they double up the memory slots to increase bandwidth too ?


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