RAM advice

[mac89]

I want to buy 1 gig of extra RAM cause Ive experienced some difficulties playing Call of Juarez and Company of Heroes.

These are what I have now:


Swissbit 3200 200 MHz

Any advice from who to buy, thanks.

[Shaun]

Well, its not the new, faster DDR2 RAM so another gig wont make a huge difference, although that said another gig wont take much from your wallet.

[mac89]

Well, its not the new, faster DDR2 RAM so another gig wont make a huge difference, although that said another gig wont take much from your wallet.

So going up to 2 gigs of DDR RAM wont help at all? My Mobo doesnt support DDR2 I think.

[Shaun]

So going up to 2 gigs of DDR RAM wont help at all? My Mobo doesnt support DDR2 I think.

It will help, just not very much, although DDR RAM is pretty cheap these days.

[PyrrhusIV]

So going up to 2 gigs of DDR RAM wont help at all? My Mobo doesnt support DDR2 I think.

Dont worry, DDR ram is not "outdated" ahem, it usually have better latency than DDR2 RAM. Now, DDR2 Ram is faster, but the difference between 2GB's of DDR2 and DDR is minimal.

[Erik]

Dont worry, DDR ram is not "outdated" ahem, it usually have better latency than DDR2 RAM. Now, DDR2 Ram is faster, but the difference between 2GB's of DDR2 and DDR is minimal.

Agreed.

And he has 200mhz ("DDR-400") 3-3-3-8, and that's pretty good.
Faster than most DDR2-533 memory me think.

Not that memory speed matters in your decision to expand or not.

I want to buy 1 gig of extra RAM cause Ive experienced some difficulties playing Call of Juarez and Company of Heroes.

These are what I have now:


Swissbit 3200 200 MHz

Any advice from who to buy, thanks.

If you realy want more RAM your choice is simple: DDR-400 (aka pc3200) with low latencies (preferable no worst than 3-3-3-8)
In other words exactly the same stuff you have now.

But are you sure 1GB isn't enough?
I don't play those games but I doubt they need more than 1GB, not many games do.
Does your harddisk rattle a lot during play? that's you best sign that yo uran out of ram.

You should record your memory load (there are tools for that available, you should be able to find them with Google) and see if it ever reaches 100% during play.
If it never reached 100% then adding more RAM won't make difference.
If it only reaches 100% during loading it wil speed up loading, but not actual play.

[Spart]

It'll help in some games more than in others. For example, F.E.A.R and BF2 drain a lot of RAM. And DDR2 isn't so much better anyway.. So if you have money, upgrade, it won't do any bad either.

[Incinerate_IV]

Do you only have one stick of 512mb? Upgrading from 512mb to 1gig is worth it, but anything more than 1gig won't make any difference.

Just buy the cheapest stick of 512mb DDR-400 ram you can find. Lower latency won't make any difference.

[Hadrian]

IncinerateIV, why did you say that anything over 1GB won't make a difference? I could see it if you said over 3 or 4GBs, but anything over 1GB?

[Shaun]

IncinerateIV, why did you say that anything over 1GB won't make a difference? I could see it if you said over 3 or 4GBs, but anything over 1GB?

I second this, if anything over 1GB wont make a difference, then why does PC Gamer UK recommend at least 2 Gigs for many new games?

[Incinerate_IV]

IncinerateIV, why did you say that anything over 1GB won't make a difference? I could see it if you said over 3 or 4GBs, but anything over 1GB?

2GBs maby be good for future games and Vista, but right now it really don't make any difference. When I upgraded from 1GB to 2GBs I didn't notice any difference in games. The extra $100 could be put to better use, like a better graphics card.

[mac89]

2GBs maby be good for future games and Vista, but right now it really don't make any difference. When I upgraded from 1GB to 2GBs I didn't notice any difference in games. The extra $100 could be put to better use, like a better graphics card.

I already bought a new Vidcard and some games do bennefit from those 2 Gigs.