Mixing ram (different speeds)

Hey guys, i have a question.

I have a crappy office pc at work with 1 gig of slow ram (ddr2, 533 MHz) and i'm planning on adding two gigs of pc6400 (800 ghz) ram to it. I was wondering if mixing the slow and fast ram would hinder performance and if i should just remove the one gig of the slow ram and go with two of the fast or simply go with 3 gigz?

Thanks for the input.

I'm mainly wondering whether the pc will run faster having 2 gigs of ddr2 800 ram or 3 gigs of mixed ram?

Oh, and don't ask about the other components, it's a crappy dell pre-built office pc (pentium D).

But what if his motherboard doesn't support 800MHz memory, wouldn't be better in that situation have 3GB of 533Mhz memory?

I'm curious because i'm kind on the same situation :P

Okay First Check out the Motherboard, and see what type speeds the motherboard Supports. Then check out your processor, check the FSB speeds that it supports. Match them up and thats what your Memory speed should be. If its 533, get 2 GB of 533 ram, if its 800, then Take 533 out, and put 800 in.

Don't Mix RAM, unless your motherboard supports it, it will make your computer unstable, and problems will occur.

Hah, well that's what my boss gets for not listening to me and buying a dell. The motherboard only supports 533 or 667 ram speeds and he already purchased the 800mhz ram.

I guess since the ddr2 800 ram will be downclocked to the slower speeds i might just as well keep all the ram modules in the computer (3 gigs of "slower 533 ram").

Okay First Check out the Motherboard, and see what type speeds the motherboard Supports. Then check out your processor, check the FSB speeds that it supports. Match them up and thats what your Memory speed should be. If its 533, get 2 GB of 533 ram, if its 800, then Take 533 out, and put 800 in.

You and deadfirezero have hit the nail on the head here, great advice. And for my two cents 3 gigs of ram (533) will be just as fast and effective as 2 gigs of (800hmz), the difference wouldent even be noticable.

lawrencexx_873

Yeah, juat add the extra RAM. If it is a Pentium D, then the highest FSB it could have would be 200 (800 effective). And DDR 400 would run at a 1:1 ratio with a 800 FSB. 400/2=200 800/4=200.

So even DDR2 533 would be faster than needed. Heck 533 would be enough for the CPU in your sig, at stock at least.