Which ram setup is better?

[Heeter]

Hey all,

Your thoughts on this setup....

This is for a Win7 gaming machine.

4 gig 1066mghz DDR2 ram -or- 8 gig 800mghz DDR2 ram


Heeter

 

[epk]

for gaming? mm.. well, games don't use all that much ram, so you'll prolly have better results with the faster 4gb option
however, the system will be snappier with 8gb, and you'll definitely see a difference if you multitask with memory hungry programs

 

[LeeJend]

Video games use massive amounts of RAM to hold textures. The info is cached on your "slow" system RAM and pulled into and out of your "fast" video card RAM as needed. 2 GB is not a whole lot of memory for gaming if you are using hi resolution (1280 or 1600) video settings.

There will be 2 sources of lag -pulling the textures out of system ram to video ram and pulling textures off the HDD to system RAM. The HDD to system is the real killer.

I'd probably go with the 4GB on the MB. But in an ideal $$$ world I'd want speed and 4GB. I assumed you are using 64 BIT windows. You only get 3.2 GB available if you are using 32 BIT windows and the trade off is not as clear cut, though I'd still favor more RAM on the MB.

Also, part of the speed difference is lost because 1066 ram will have more wait states. Not a massive loss but I thought I'd mention it.

 

[Heeter]

Thanks for that great input, Leejend.


I have upgraded this HDD to a 150gig velociraptor, from a mundane 5400rpm 1.5terabyte HDD last week.

I do have the generic 8 gigs of no-name DDR2 800 RAM in here, but, thanks to this post, will be moving to 4gigs of 1066 stuff later this weekend.

I have upgraded to a Phenom II X4 965 BE yesterday from the Phenom X4 9850 BE that was in here.

I also want to take advantage of my crossfire chipset on this board, so I will be removing the 9800GT that is in here now.

All in all, it is not so bad right now. I am playing Crysis Warhead on the existing setup at 1680x1050, 2x antialiasing on this ASUS VW246H HDMI monitor. So far, the only real lag I have seen is when I spin around really fast.

Initial game load times is slow too, But I attribute that to the fact that my Windows7 Libraries folders are pointed to a secondary drive, and it might also have to load something off Steam before it fires up (I bought the Crysis valuepack from Steam).

Heeter

 

[dreamliner77]

Why don't you take the best of both worlds... See if your 8 gigs of 800 will overclock. I have generic Wintec 800 that will do 1000 speeds easy (Micron D9 chips).

 

[Sazar]

Hey all,

Your thoughts on this setup....

This is for a Win7 gaming machine.

4 gig 1066mghz DDR2 ram -or- 8 gig 800mghz DDR2 ram


Heeter

Other system specs? Size of display?

Typically, the 4GB would be the best bet for you.

I have run into few situations where I have exceeded 4 GB myself and in hindsight I would have likely stayed with 4 or 6 GB.