RAM/MB upgrade advise....

Eye

Just looking for a little advise, more or less to confirm what i'm pretty sure about already, but still better safe than sorry.

Ok, first off my current system is an Abit KG7-RAID board with 2x256 Samsung PC2100 sticks of DDR RAM and finally an Athlon XP 1600 @ 1400mhz.

right now i'm trying to do a little bit of upgrading and wanna see what is the best thing to do on a tight enough budget. i would like to get some extra ram or possibly change the board but i don't think i can afford a cpu upgrade just now so that will wait for another couple of months.

now what i'd like someone to try confirm for me is first of all, if i do upgrade ram, looking at 2 sticks of 512MB crucial PC3200 DDR, i know putting it into my current machine should in theory work and it should just slow it down to run at PC2100 speeds i hope, however, the thing is that the board from what i can make out only supports upto PC2100, will putting in PC3200 be effected by this?

secondly to do with the ram also, the PC3200 that i'm looking at also has a CAS latency of 3, where as my PC2100 has only CAS latency of 2.5, again will this effect mixing the ram?

To do with a possible new board, looking at the DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra board, has anybody got one of these or know how reliable they are, any known issues with them etc.?

finally, if i did change the board then obviously the RAM Q's above should'nt be an issue as the old ram would'nt be touching the new board, however the old cpu would have to, i assume a good new board like that should be backward compatible for an old xp1600, would there be any issues with the old cpu mixed with new PC3200 ram?

if anyone can confirm/deny/advise on any of the above Q's it would be greatly appreciated as i'm thinking of purchasing in the next 48hrs or so

Thanks in advance,

Eye

K!LL!@N

Just one thing about the 3200 ram, i have it running in my machine at CAS 2.5 with no problems. I've also read a review which tested various different brands of ram and they ran the crucial ram at CAS 2.5 as well. It performed quite well in the tests against higher rated ram until it came to overclocking, can't remember the url off hand.

Killian

patch

I could be wrong here, but 512 of 3200 should be enough for gaming. Unless your planning on video editing a gig is overkill.
If you were to go with 512, and spend the saved cash on a new motherboard, you could run the 3200 at full speed.

Eye

thanks for that, and well my primary use will be gaming alright, however my dad does alot of photo editing so the extra is needed and will be put to good use
it can be quite slow editing pics of 80-100Mbs when photoshop is hogging so much ram to begin wih :-\

tbh 512 is plenty for most games but i have found a few that gave me problems on my current system, Sim City 4 being a good example, when you start to get a decent sized city going the RAM takes a dive, game gets so jumpy that when i check resources out of the 512Mb's i have i'm usually down to about 10Mb free and cpu is at solid 100% when playing that :-\ and i do have my hdd setup to run bare minimum of background programs to try help.

anyone know if the PC3200 ram would drop to run at CAS 2.5 automatically to match what i already have? (assuming i keep this board)

K!LL!@N

There's no harm in having a Gb of ram if ya can get it.
Max Payne 2's recommended ram is 512Mb.
Even if the mobo isn't quite up to scratch you could always upgrade that later and keep the ram.
I don't know if they ram will automatically run at cas 2.5 on the mobo, on mine it went to cas 2.5 automatically.

Killian

strat

DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra board - best socket A board imo, check tomshardware and anandtech for reviews, they loved it

Tivoli

my primary use will be gaming alright, however my dad does alot of photo editing

buy an xbox, tell dad to piss off

Eye

Cheers K!ll!@n and strat

as for mukki, i would'nt touch an xbox with a 10ft pole, or any other console for that matter, i grew outta those years ago (long live the SNES) and realised pc's are the way to go for proper gaming :P

Tivoli

Well Eye i totally disagree, almost every time a new game comes out you have to upgrade your pc, search for patches,, tweak the setting to suit your pc, with an xbox you just play the game,when you get bored of that solder in a mod and its better then any pc

OfflerCrocGod

There is no point in you getting that new RAM and sticking it into your present computer it will make things slower, firstly CAS Latency of 3 is crap look for at least 2.5, using sticks with CAS L of 2.5 and 3 means everything will start running at the slower speed of CAS L 3 - it has to be synchronized, the slowest speed will be used. Also there is no point in getting faster RAM when your CPU will not support it PC3200 RAM with an AthlonXP1600+ CPU runs at PC2100 speeds - no advantage there. That new MB is very good but without a new CPU your speed increase will be negligible, you are better of getting an extra 512Mb of PC2100 RAM at CAS L 2.5, and then getting a new CPU MB and RAM when you can afford it - all in one AND running at the same speed.

Eye

cheers for that info OCG

will have to rethink what i will do in terms of the upgrade now i guess, but thanks for saving me alot of time/money/hassle, greatly appreciated