Really confused about RAM

[voodoo1694]

OK... I've been out of the computer hardware loop for quite some time so bare with me.

I'm in the market for a new PC. I'm going to buy a P4 3.2ghz machine (before anyone cringes, 99% of the time I edit video. I play maybe 1 game a year). I'm going to buy an Abit IC7-MAX3 for this.

Now, I see sooo many different kinds of RAM. I've been seeing latency timings (have no idea what that means), and speeds. I'm not going to OC, so someone on here recomended I get a couple sticks of 222 special mushkin PC3200 RAM, so I did. Now i've done a little more investigative work and i see theres PC3500 all the way to PC4400. I want the best, fastest RAM available without overclocking anything. Did i make a mistake buying 3200? Should I have bought faster RAM? Someone please clear this up! Thank yoU!

 

[9KingDiamond9]

If you wanted to get some fast dual channel ram, the OCZ Enhanced Bandwidth is by far one of the best lines of memory you could get. It is a lot faster than the Enhanced Latency set, and I think it was Anandtech or Toms Hardware that did a great review on them. You can check out the line here: http://www.axiontech.com/search.php?&ksfavl=&ksfprc=&ksfrat=&ksfcnd=&ksrt=avl&kdir=&kstl=0&kspg=0&ksspg=0&ttl=on&orginize=&coktype=nor

 

[fsstrike]

If your NOT going to overclock, than 3200 is the FASTEST your computer can handle. PC 4400 is DDR 550, and would require that you increase ur FSB by 75, which is huge. To get your PC to run @ DDR 550 you would need to OC to 4.4Ghz Someone correct me if i am wrong.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Unless you overclock, PC3500 and up offers no speed increase, you'll still be running at PC3200 speed.

 

[voodoo1694]

thanks for the quick replies guys, this forum rocks!

I got each gig on sale for 260, which is pretty good compared to what NewEgg wants for the 222 (~350 each i think), so I think I'll stick with that. Will I notice a huge difference with the dual channel RAM that KingDiamond recomended? I thought mine was dual channel....

Also, what's the point of having PC4400 RAM if hardly anyone can use it? Is something coming up that will take advantage of such speeds? I thought DDR2 was the next best thing...?

 

[9KingDiamond9]

You can run the 4400 on intel boards I think. I'm not a pentium user...but I was told with intel you can run the higher speed memory a lot easier than trying with AMD. As for the differences between normal dual-channel memory and say, the ones I mentioned, I've heard different things about whether you yourself can tell the difference, or just by benchmarking tests. I guess it depends on what you're using your computer for.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: voodoo1694
thanks for the quick replies guys, this forum rocks!

I got each gig on sale for 260, which is pretty good compared to what NewEgg wants for the 222 (~350 each i think), so I think I'll stick with that. Will I notice a huge difference with the dual channel RAM that KingDiamond recomended? I thought mine was dual channel....

Also, what's the point of having PC4400 RAM if hardly anyone can use it? Is something coming up that will take advantage of such speeds? I thought DDR2 was the next best thing...?

Yours is about the fastest memory you can buy at your stock setting. Don't worry and enjoy your nice gig dual channel ram.

PC4000 and up exist because some people like to overclock and like to run their ram at loose 1:1 timings instead of 5:4. There are people who've overclocked their P4 to 300fsb or higher. They all pretty much use Hynix ram to push 300fsb.

 

[bluewall21]

Yeah, some people run their RAM async, and can use extremely fast speeds (and bad timings, but I won't get into that).

 

[Pauli]

You got a great price on the best memory for your system since you're not overclocking. Give yourself a pat on the back.

The PCxxxx "speed" of the memory, is the speed that it is capable of running at -- your motherboard's Front-Side Bus (FSB) is what determines what speed the memory actually runs at. The timings are the same thing -- yours are spec'd to run at 2-2-2, but your motherboard has setting which make that happen (usually the timings are automatically detected). Since you aren't planning to overclock your FSB, your memory will be running within spec at the fastest memory timings available.

 

[RussianSoldier]

don't worry about it; 640K of memory should be enough for anyone.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: RussianSoldier
don't worry about it; 640K of memory should be enough for anyone.

Ok William