Computer Memory Upgrades..

[Joe Shmoe]

My cousin says he has some memory chips he is selling cheap, but I wanted to know if it was compatible with what I have? I know as I am typing this I have no idea what I have, I believe it to be 512mb DDR something or other but without tearing into the tower I have no idea on the specifics.

My cousin said...Most "off the shelf" computers use pc2700 333mhz ram. Said.. his motherboard requires at least pc3200 400mhz or better?

[doudou]

if he sells some "pc3200 @400mhz" and if your computer accept DDR ram it should match without any problem

if your computer works only at 333mhz, the ram you added will works only at 333 even if you by some 400.

in a nutshell, no need to buy some 400 if you put it in a computer that make it work at 333.a bran new 333mhz chip can be cheaper than an old 400mhz chip(it depends on where you buy it, in france the 333 are often more expansive than the 400).

i hope it will help you.

[Joe Shmoe]

Thanks, I found out what I needed from Dell Support.

One other question though... what's the difference in RDram and DDRram? Which is better?

[doudou]

DDR is the one we found in most pc today.

that s the minimum to know.

it exist at diferents speed. 266/333/400 and 512 mhz with DDR2

[Joe Shmoe]

Here's the email I got from DELL on my PC:

The current configuration of the system is 512MB PC1066 RDRAM,2X256.

The configuration that the system support is:

Type

PC800 or PC1066 RDRAM (non-ECC)

Memory connectors

four

Memory capacities

64-, 128-, 256-, and 512-MB non-ECC

Minimum memory

128 MB

Maximum memory

2 GB for PC800

1.5 GB for PC1066

Memory type

PC 1066 (non-ECC) only on computers with a 533-MHz system clock speed

PC 800 (non-ECC) on computers with either a 400- or a 533-MHz system

clock speed

Memory speed

PC800

40 ns or faster

PC1066

32 ns or faster

BIOS address

F8000h

Now...What does all that mean in human terms? Is 1066 slow? And I still would like to know what the difference between RD & DDR is.

The rest of my system is as follows:

DELL Dimension 8250

Pentium 4 2.8 GHZ

512 mb of RAM

RADEON 9700 Pro

1.2 GB Hard Drive

[doudou]

your ram is 512(1066 is 2x512), it s the best today.

i think your P4 @2,8 work at 800mhz for the bus frequency.

so ram @ 400 should be enought.

but wait for some more answers to be sure.

[doudou]

your hard drive is 120 Gb i guess

you have a nice setup.

don t worry about some upgrade, you can still do a lot of thing with your pc.

[Joe Shmoe]

Thanks... I really like this system & it runs everything nicely, maybe just a hair off with Doom3 but overall verynice. It was a tax refund spent nicely.

[pinipig523]

NO! Dont add DDR to a RDRAM system. DDR400 doesnt work on your system. Go to crucial.com and get your RDRAM from there.

[toddvj]

I was going to say...The Memory your cousin has is not compatible. And no, 1066 is Faster than 800. For more info, do a google search, you'll find out all you need to know about the differences.

btw, doudou, 2x512 = 1024. In english doo-doo means poop, human excrement, is that what you wanted for your user name?

[doudou]

i made a little mistake it s 533 *2 ok

toddvl, i know what doo-doo means.

but if you look closer at my user name you will see that it s writen DOUDOU , not DOO - DOO.

so it doesn t means the same thing at all.

in french a doudou is the teady bear little children keep with them all the time.

i hope in your children in the usa don t have poop always in their arms

[doudou]

and if you put a 400mhz memory chip in a pc that need a 533 the pc will slow down if the bios is well setup.but it will works.

i did not see your pc was at 1066, of course you should not put the chip of your cousin in your pc.sorry.next time i ll read the post twice before answering

[katanablade]

I'm sure you've already realized it, but you cannot use DDR memory in a Rambus system.

Rambus is superior memory, but it costs a lot. Intel abandoned making Rambus systems a while back.

Rambus is beginning to make their next generation of RAM, XDR RAM, and it is ages ahead of DDR. Beats DDR3 pretty well too.

Here's a little explanation of what's out there:

Old RAMBUS memory has a bandwidth of 1066 MHz. It's not used for desktops anymore.

DDR RAM that isn't overclocked has a maximum of 400 MHz, but can be put into dual channel--This uses two identical sticks of RAM and their independent bandwidth to effectively run at 800 MHz, but the actual performance doesn't get that high. This Intel's memory of choice until recently. AMD still uses this.

DDR2 RAM is basically higher density DDR. Same idea, just a maximum of 800 MHz or 1600 MHz in dual channel. Intel uses this now. AMD seems to be moving to it, but it'll be short lived because it is so far behind DDR3 and XDR.

DDR3 RAM is faster and is used in new video cards.

XDR is Rambus's new memory that can run up to 8000 MHz, and will be used by Playstation 3, and PCs in about a year or two. This should be a popular memory solution since it is being designed for Cell, Sony/IBM/Toshiba's monster of a processor that will be in so many electronics in the future. Nvidia, a popular video card maker, has plans to use it in future video cards, and is getting experience doing it by making Playstation 3's video.