3GB 667MHz or 2GB 800MHz

I'm going to buy a Dell XPS 420 soon and I've got the choice between; 2GB DDR2 800MHz or 3GB DRR2 667MHz. They come to about the same price and I just wonder which is better to have.

What advantages are there to 800Mhz? Bare in mind that I am likely to upgrade to 3GB+ of 800MHz (if that's what I get) after a few months. With the 667Mhz I am unlikely to any time soon because of the 32bit OS limitation.

DDR2 800 is not significantly faster than DDR2 667. And actually, if you're running an E6X50 processor, DDR2 667 is perfect for a machine you can't overclock, since it'll naturally be running at a 1:1 ratio with your processor.

Better to have 3GB of DDR2 667 than 2GB of DDR2 800.

Well here's the rest of the rig:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz

Nvidia Geforce 8800GT 512MB

(the important stuff) Any of that effect which RAM to choose?

go for 2GBs of DDR2 even though there difference in performance is minimal if you were to upgrade youd have to get 667mhz Ram sticks if you went with 3gbs so in the future you can get 800mhz sticks id go for ther 2 gbs.yoyo462001

It's not as if he's going to be overclocking in the future. 3GB of DDR2 667 is likely a better option in his case. He won't have to add RAM in the forseeable future, and as I said before, it's not as if DDR2 667 is noticeably slower than DDR2 800.

I'll be using Vista Home Premium. Does that change anything? Because so far it would seem as if the 3GB is the best option.ganon92

In which case the 3GB is a better option. In order to solidly run games on Vista, you'll need that extra GB. The 33% RAM increase will outweigh the fairly minor increase in RAM performance that you'd get from the 800MHz.

Is it not better to get the 800MHz so that in a few months I can just upgrade to 3GB, thus having the same amount of RAM as I would with the 667MHz, but with a higher speed; just ignoring the gap in time-?ganon92

Here's the thing, with that Q6600 CPU you are getting, 533 MHz RAM would be fast enough. There is no harm in going faster, just no real world gain. 667 RAM is more than fast enough for that Q6600.

Still RAM is pretty cheap so getting 2GB of 800 now and another GB later won't be a bad idea, but I feel the 667 is more than enough for you.

Is it not better to get the 800MHz so that in a few months I can just upgrade to 3GB, thus having the same amount of RAM as I would with the 667MHz, but with a higher speed; just ignoring the gap in time-?ganon92

i had to make the same decision on my Dell XPS 720

i went with 2GB RAM at 800Mhz
but i have XP 32bit so 2GB is enough

Its very simple. Go with the 3GB of RAM. I can guarantee you that won't see a difference in performance in real-world situations in a higher-speed RAM of DDR2-800mhz. Don't give me some benchmark BS here however.

Even so that RAM is cheap now, think about whats the point in spending extra for nothing?

Don't have to upgrade what-so ever if you opt to go the 3GB of DDR2-667. I'll say it again, no difference in performance in real world apps.

If you have that quad CPU then you can go up to 1066Mhz speed RAM (matching it with the processor).

2GB of 800Mhz, at very low latencies (eg - 4 4 4 12) is easily availible at around £40.00, branded. There's always special offers on (UK mail order, I'm not sure about other countries).

Couple of things to watch out for - you may need to buy the upgrade RAM in pairs, and you should try to get the same sticks - some 2GB 800s are getting a bit scarce because the new DDR3 is out, so you don't want to wait too long to upgrade or you could find the price going up; that's not a definite it's just a possibility depending on what sticks you opt for, because they might not be manufactured any longer.

Having an extra GB stick you aren't using is a good failsafe anyway, in case there's ever any problems with the others.

For Vista you really need the 3GB; given you have a quad though I don't see the point in going any lower than 800 - if you are going to overclock them, there's plenty of 2GB 800 kits that overclock way faster than 800 and are stable.

The best choice will be 2Gb 800Mhz. In this case you will have dual channel support dayaccus007

2x1GB and 2x512MB is the standard 3GB configuration for Dell these days. That's still dual channel.

If you have that quad CPU then you can go up to 1066Mhz speed RAM (matching it with the processor).

catweasel_777

Actually running RAM at 1066 with a Q6600 will give you a 1:2 FSB : DRAM ratio. The FSB of the Q6600 is 1066 quad pumped, so it is really 266MHz.

And the RAM is Double Data Rate, so 800/2= 400Mhz, 667/2= 333MHz, 533/2=266MHz and so on.

[QUOTE="dayaccus007"]The best choice will be 2Gb 800Mhz. In this case you will have dual channel support RayvinAzn

2x1GB and 2x512MB is the standard 3GB configuration for Dell these days. That's still dual channel.

Ah, when I first saw dayaccus007's post I though "now he has a point", but if Dell does do it that way then it will be just fine, other than if you ever want to upgrade to 4GB's you will have to toss 2x512MB's and get 2x1GB's. But I still think 3GB of 667 is just fine.

[QUOTE="dayaccus007"]The best choice will be 2Gb 800Mhz. In this case you will have dual channel support RayvinAzn

2x1GB and 2x512MB is the standard 3GB configuration for Dell these days. That's still dual channel.

I can't quote things here, so I won't re-type any of that....

the CPU speed should mean it's processing overall at whatever MHz is stated - so for that quad core you need a motherboard that can handle 1066MHz bus speed.

I don't have one myself but I'd hope it isn't running that slow (266MHz) per core, cause apparently not all the cores are even recognised by some OSs (eg - windows) - then say if it only recognises two, or an application runs only 2 cores then you're running at Pentium III speeds?!

There's a bit about what the chip is made up from here,

http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_2_quad_q6600/

When I typed '800' for the RAM I meant 800MHz, not that other number (transfer rate) that is stated along with the RAM ( for 800MHz it would be 6400 ).

800MHz means it runs at 800MHz, 667MHz runs at 667MHz, and so forth - it helps to match the speeds there up to the motherboards bus speed, it prevents any bottlenecking.

This here = just a guideline, not to be taken as gospel: generally if you have bottlenecks then either the CPU cache is having to hold the tasks processed for longer, or the chipset(s) on the motherboard are, or the RAM is - point is, whatever is fastest will be done processing while whatever is slowest will be on the overworked side of things and backlogged in terms of its tasks. So, say your CPU is doing multitasking easily but maybe the northbridge is getting too hot - hence why there's lots of chipset coolers available to buy.