DDR Memory Question for Asus A7N8X Deluxe

[rbwinstanley]

I am soon intending to upgrade my system as follows:

Asus A7n8X Deluxe Mobo
Athlon XP 2600+ 333Mhz
80Gb IBM Deskstar 180GXP

I am keeping my Radeon 8500 and CDRW and DVD etc.

I intend to buy 512Mb CAS2 DDR RAM - either one stick or 2 x 256Mb to take advantage of the dual channel memory option on the Mobo, but need some advice on which to go for.

I have been looking at the OCZ PC3500 stuff and see that they have Enhanced Latency sticks and Enhanced Latency AND Dual Channel enhanced sticks.

I do not intend to overclock, so I want to know if the system performance will benefit from having PC3500 over PC3200 (both CAS2). And whether the Enhanced latency and/or dual channel sticks will make much or any difference.

I have found little information to help me decide so far....

Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

Cheers
Roger (UK)

[ProfessorU]

The clock speed determines how fast your memory will be working... so unless you overclock your proc, you will be 'underclocking' your RAM if they are mismatched.

The few benchmarks I have seen indicate that dual channel/paired DDRSDRAM kicks single channel out of the competition. The only reason you'll want to buy dual-channel is if it's cheaper than two modules half as big. The number of remaining mem expansion slots might factor in too.

Personally, for the cost, I would just run 2 256MB DDRSDRAM PC3200 at the lowest latency I could find.

What is 'enhanced latency'? Is it actually a lower latency or just marketing mumbo-jumbo?

[rbwinstanley]

Thanks for your post.

So you've seen benchmarks that show dual channel outperforming single channel? I've only seen one benchmark and 2 x 256Mb only just (about 3%) outperformed 1 x 512Mb. If that is the level of benefit, then I'm not sure it's worth it?...

Not sure about the enhanced latency thing, their mumbo jumbo can be found at http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory.php
if you want to look and see what you think.....
I've looked and I haven't got a clue..

Still undecided, but a little clearer.

Cheers
Roger

[ProfessorU]

Well in theory the dual channel should have double the bit width of single channel. So access of random data won't be much faster, but the bus should be able to push almost twice as much data over the same time. Whatever I've heard about benchmarks is probably from maximum PC mag, but I checked this month and didn't find anything... must have been earlier.
The enhanced stuff on the OCZ site seems mostly like snake oil to me. I think it's just a special brand name for RAM at a lower latency, which other vendors also offer, without the name.
www.pricewatch.com says 2x256 PC3200 are cheaper than 1x512 of the same. 2x256 PC 3200 is my vote for the way to go.

[Train]

See what Crucial has to say That is Microns website there. Just fill out the drop down box and they will give you a answer. Tis the brand lots of us use. Me included!

The max they recommend is the pr2700.


DDR PC2700 • CL=2.5 • Unbuffered • Non-parity • 6ns • 2.5V • 64Meg x 64

[rbwinstanley]

But PC2700 is the fastest Crucial offer, so they would say that wouldn't they?

I currently have crucial memory in my system, but have read good things about the OCZ stuff.....

Roger