[the_professor]

Originally Posted by spearman914

Difference is 2DIMMS overclock more then 4DIMMS at tighter timings. Watch the 1066 MHz fly basically means its overkill. 8GB is mostly for servers means um..... first of all you need to know what a server is. For example you are playing an online game. What you are connecting to is the server in which the game is provided. The server needs to send infromation to each seperate person or computer connected to the computer which requires much more memory. Higher RAM speeds only have benefits in loading and a few more fps.
For this question "What context does 8GB benefit server use and not benefit personal computing?" Since you are not going to play any games that require 8 GB its useless and wasting money.

Wow... now that is some seriously interesting info. First, I didn't know you could actually overclock RAM, and second I'd have no idea that 2 overclock more than 4. I wonder why.

By "tighter timings" do you basically mean "faster"?

Maybe that's what that 5-5-5-etc. stuff means? That still confuses me a bit.

1066 MHz = overkill? No way!

8GB RAM for servers... I know what servers (basically) are though my guess is the 8GB RAM is to allow for a little more breathing room in use of applications from a potential plethora of players on a game server... or web server... or any kind of server. (Erm, you just explained it, heheh, but yes, okay that makes sense now.)

How could someone actually utilize 8GB of RAM on their personal computer in a non-gaming context like with, say, massive editing of multimedia (video, audio, etc.)? Or is it impossible?

I definitely don't want to waste money. I won't do 8GB of RAM for a while. It's interesting how there are multiple options when going with just 4GB of RAM.

I'm resolved with this: 4GB RAM.

Now I'd like to narrow it down farther.

I can do 1066 MHz, though am not sure how that compares to 1000 MHz or higher.

I could try Micron though it looks like that's hard to get. G.Skills is probably going to be the brand of choice for me then.

How noticeable of a difference in speed is there between 800 MHz and 1066 MHz RAM?

For example, if I boot the computer or load a "heavy" program, would there be a noticeable difference?

How about between 1000 MHz and 1066 Mhz?

Maybe there's a bargain in cost of RAM between those two?


EDIT:

When shopping RAM, I suppose I can just look for the 5-5-5etc. that has the lowest numbers.


EDIT 2:

Originally Posted by spearman914

Oh was I reading that wrong. the "1100 and "800" in "DDR2-1100" and "DDR2-800", respectively, refer to MHz, right?
Yes

Or did you mean the best stuff out there right now as in the best deals (for the money spent)? There is RAM better then it but for now its the best deal.

I'm willing to put more $$$ into my RAM for more MHz, as it sounds like it's a good idea to get more MHz.

Originally Posted by erocker

Lol, why because it has a black heatspreader? I was speaking on performance.




Yes, buy your RAM sticks in pairs. If you look at an etailer such as Newegg you'll notice RAM comes in a variety of speeds.

I saw a Corsair deal that was a kit of 4 sticks together, that was interesting.

I'll get the pair, it'll be good to know that my RAM matches.

There is a huge range,100 MHz to 2133 MHz!

Originally Posted by Pinchy

Yep I generally just go for whatever is cheapest.

I mean it *does* depend on whether or not you overclock. If you are going to overclock your CPU, RAM becomes important. The reason is, when you increase the CPU front side bus, the RAM speed increases too.

So purely hypothetically, if you want to increase your FSB to 900 but your RAM can only top out at 880, then your FSB will have to remain at 880 because the RAM simply cant perform that well and if overclocked too much, will cause stability errors.





Buying a "kit" is generally prefered as your getting matched sticks of RAM (ie, RAM with the same specifications). When you mix RAM that have different specifications up, it will run perfectly fine, but the "better" RAM (so to speak) will run at the "worse" RAM speeds. For example, if you buy 2GB of 1066MHz RAM and 2GB of 800MHz RAM, they will run perfectly fine together, BUT the 1066MHz RAM will run at 800MHz (making the extra $$$ you spent on 1066MHz a complete waste).


Yeah they even have a 900MHz kit out . In BIOS (on intel boards at least, not too sure on AMD), you can only set it to like 800/1066 (based on your CPU's FSB; these values can vary to like, 788/1054 etc). When you overclock though, as stated, your RAM speed goes up with the FSB speed.

So say you get a kit of 1000MHz RAM. If you had an intel chip with an 800FSB, you would set the RAM to 800MHz (even though its rated at 1000MHz). Now when you push the FSB of the CPU up, the RAM will go with it. So the benefit of having 1000MHz RAM is that you are guaranteed the RAM will run perfectly stable when the CPU FSB is at 1000MHz.

1066 of the G.skill Pi RAM is $100, so the extra $20 (from the $80 of the 1000MHz) is not worth it IMO, for 66MHz.

You could teach a "RAM 101" class. That's very interesting info. I think an old desktop of mine has mismatching MHz RAM, lol. It was cheap freebie RAM. I just hope I didn't damage my computer mixing them up like that. Though it's a stone-age computer, probably doesn't make a difference.

Unless I did the math wrong, and I may very well have, it looks like that 1000 MHz RAM and 1066 MHz RAM have a price difference of "8 cents per 1 MHz" with the 1000 MHz and "9 cents per 1 MHz" for the 1066 MHz... or maybe that's "$1 per 12.5 MHz" with the 1000 MHz and "$1 per 11.1 MHz" with the 1066 MHz. (or $10 <=> 125 MHz and $10 <=> 111 MHz... etc.) Yeah, unless I did that wrong, it does add up to a savings by the time you go up to 1000 Hz or 1066 MHz.