Whats better 1GB of PC2100 RAM or 768MB of PC3200?

[Conscript]

The title sums up the question.

I have the following in inventory:

1 256MB of PC3200 RAM
1 512MB of PC2100 RAM

and tomorrow I get:

1 512MB of PC3200 RAM

My eMachines takes PC3200 and it came with 256MB. Now it has only 2 DIMM slots, so I can only combine 2 of the 3 available RAM chips.

The only possible combinations are

768MB of PC3200 RAM (256MB PC3200 + 512MB PC2100)
1024MB of PC2100 RAM (512MB PC3200 + 512MB PC2100)

since if I put in the 512MB of PC2100 it will slow the rest to that speed.

So what should I do? What would yield higher performance?

I put in the 512MB PC2100 for now until I get the package tomorrow and it greatly speeded things up even though all 768MB are now at PC2100.

 

[Daniel]

Depends what processor. Speed doesn't matter aslong as the FSB of the ram is equal to the processor.

 

[Conscript]

This is the eMachines I talked about earlier. Its an AMD Sempron 3100+

 

[Daniel]

768MB of PC3200 RAM (256MB PC3200 + 512MB PC2100)

That would make 768MB of PC2100 RAM.

It doesn't round up, it rounds down.

If it's for the Sempron, it wouldn't matter much at all, just shove all 3 sticks in. It's not like you'll miss the extra performance by going 1:1.

 

[kaboomme]

he only has 2 slots, either wat its much better to have 1gig available IMO, hehe

 

[Daniel]

Then 1gb

 

[xedis]

Go with this one:1024MB of PC2100 RAM (512MB PC3200 + 512MB PC2100) trust me it's better. It all comes down to the FSB of the ram oldman2

 

[niv]

Or you can just buy a d/c pair of PC-3200s and use them in another machine when you finally decide to get a new mobo.

 

[Conscript]

Well I went with 768MB of PC3200. The eMachines came with 256MB PC3200 and my 512MB stick came in of also PC3200. I also put in the GeForce 6600 128MB AGP card in, and for now performance seems to be adequate.

I wish there was some benchmarks or something available on how much RAM speed impacts performance...

 

[tandoc]

I wish there was some benchmarks or something available on how much RAM speed impacts performance...

There is, but the name of it escapes me at the moment.... Google helps :biggrin2:

 

[Daniel]

I wish there was some benchmarks or something available on how much RAM speed impacts performance...

You wouldn't notice it. Unless you're a heavy gamer or something, where 5 extra frames or something matters.

 

[niv]

There is, but the name of it escapes me at the moment.... Google helps :biggrin2:

3DMark?

 

[tandoc]

No, I remember there was a benchmark app specifically designed for RAM testing, but I forgot what it was... I think 3Dmark has ram testing, but in the paid version only, I think there's only GPU/CPU testing in the free version...

 

[niv]

One could use memtest, but that would just give speeds and reports of errors. Not exactly useful in determining performance, but it's still something.