How good is value ram?

[Tarrant64]

Hey guys. I've been wanting to upgrade my Kingston Hyper X 512mb PC3200 to a gig for some time now. I really don't have a lot of money but sometimes when i want something i save up what i need. Now, to the point. I see a lot of savings in getting value ram over all these low latency and what not memory. Am I going to get a performance boost moving to 1gig of value ram at PC3200? I overclock a little, but I have also read that some people can do a little overclocking with their value ram. Is it worth it to save up for some good low latency(or whatever else besides low latency there might be) ram or should I just stick with value ram?

Thanks!!
Tarrant

AMD64 3200+
2x WD Raptor 10,000rpm 36.7GB
1x Maxttor 7200rpm 80GB
512MB KHX PC3200
Creative Labs 2 ZS Plat(blah blah blah....)

 

[Hajime]

With an AMD64?

In a word, "No".

You'll likely get an even bigger performance boost -not- OC'ing and upgrading to 1gb of ram.

 

[Mik3y]

low latency has less then a 1% increase in memory performance speedwise vs higher latency for amd. so generally, the difference between low latency and high latency on an amd machine is price. no noticable or real world performance out there.

 

[Tarrant64]

So stick with 1gig value ram?

 

[Thermalrock]

thats like the opposite of wjat ive read. since the memory controller is in the chip the low latency does more for amd than it does for intel is what i read.

 

[Mojoed]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
low latency has less then a 1% increase in memory performance speedwise vs higher latency for amd...no noticable or real world performance out there.

Hrm, I guess your mileage will vary. On my AMD64 system, I get performance bumps anywhere from ~1% to 5-6% when I go with aggressive timings. (2-2-2-5-T1)

 

[Tarrant64]

Would I be pretty decent if I just added another stick of 512 KHX PC 3200???
That would put me at 1 gig.

 

[Thermalrock]

wouldnt that mean you have to run the old ram slower than it can?

 

[Tarrant64]

if i get another stick of 512 3200? I didnt' think so. I thought it'll run at pc3200 regardless whether i have 1 or 2 sticks.

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: Thermalrock
thats like the opposite of wjat ive read. since the memory controller is in the chip the low latency does more for amd than it does for intel is what i read.

entirely not true.

 

[crumply]

hey Mic3y:

do you have a source for your assertion re: 1% increase in performance?

 

[Sarge1]

I have 512 (2x256, slot 1 & 2) of Geil Golden Dragon @3200/CAS 2.5 in mine, and decided to upgrade to 1g. Not wanting to P.O. the wife (the money thing), I went with Kingston Value RAM @ 3200/CAS 3 (slot 3). I figured I would need to run it at the slowest timings for it to work, so I set the RAM to CAS 3, but it wouldn't POST.
Set it back down to 2.5 and it runs fine. NF7S-V2 mobo.

 

[walkure]

Surprised that I'm the first person in this thread to post the link to Zebo's memory performance comparison thread.

Those tests show that the ultra-low latency RAM really only amounts to minimal performance increase. I wonder if anyone could even notice the difference real world for 9/10 applications (I bet there is on average 1/10 apps that you might notice a slight benefit... possibly for example zipping/unzipping very large archive files)

 

[Amaroque]

LL RAM is not necessary for the A64 to perform good.

A 1T command rate is very important however.

 

[DrCool]

DEPENDS..

people are always spouting off about this topic. it really depends on what tasks you wish to accomplish.

are you a gamer? then you want the higest peformance possible, your most likely oc'ing and the higher you push the processor the more so your ram needs to scale with it.

you can generally get a higher oc with less ram, (less physical sticks / smaller amount)

get 512MB of the high-end stuff

are you a content manic? working with large photos, or video?

you want to MAX out your board with memory.. get the quality stuff, 3-1GB sticks of crucial..

Memory is all about specific tasks.

win xp needs 256mb to operate properly.. 512MB to thrive, and 1GB if you want to ditch the pagefile (swap)

MOST games won't take advantage of anything over 512MB.. HL2 is a good example. if you had 512MB or 2GB wouldn't make a difference in game peformance. might help with load times though.