Thread: Memory upgrade

Hi,
I am thinking about upgrading my PC memory, my current memory is 3x256Mb PC2100 (133MHz) DDR DRAM.
If I upgrade say to 1Gb PC2700 (333MHz) DDR DRAM or 1Gb PC3200 (400MHz) DDR DRAM will I see any noticable change in my computers performance?


Thanks in advance

Hi rulocal

The general rule with RAM is "the more the better", depending on the limits of your motherboard and OS of course.
Adding a 1Gb of RAM will give you a performance increase as will upgrading to
PC2700 (333MHz) DDR DRAM or 1Gb PC3200 (400MHz), but the question of will you notice any change in performance , i would say it would be quicker but the speed increase you would notice would be minimal.

If you would like to post me your motherboard make/model and CPU speed spec , i should be able to advise you on the optimal choice of RAM for your configuration.

hope that helps a little

Hi,
Thanks for the reply, my motherboard is a PC Chips Socket A M848A and my processor is an AMD Athlon XP 2000 MHz (7.5 x 267) 2400+

Would be grateful for any help

Cheers

PS I am away for the weekend so will not be able to reply till I get back.

Cheers

Hi,

Ok because of the CPU your using (AMD Athlon 2400+) you will not see much benefit by going up to PC2700 or PC3200 unless your into overclocking your CPU , so adding another PC2100 to upgrade your RAM would be fine, although putting in faster RAM wont hurt you just wont see much benefit.

However if you plan to overclock your CPU or upgrade your CPU in the future then you should get PC2700 or PC3200.

To sum up, it really depends on the price of the different RAM, and to what your plans are with regards to upgrading your system in the future.

I hope this helps, any more questions then come back to me.

Hi,
It's me again, can you tell me about ECC & NON ECC memory? And which one do I need?

Cheers
Dave

Hi,

I think you will need Non-ecc in your system. ECC is normally used in servers, ECC is error correction which means data would be checked when passed through the memory, therefore running slightly slower then Non-ECC.
Also the general rule is to not mix memory types like non-ecc and ecc, the best thing to do would be to pull out one of your chips and take a look what type you have installed so your sure which ones you need.

YIKEs.. this is way way way over my head! My computer is really slow and when I went to talk to someone about a memory upgrade he said that oyu don't have to actually but the memory itself. He said to buy this program that shuffles things around. (I believe its a cd and can be used on more than one computer). Have you heard of something like this?

Hi,
I think you are talking about memory-managers (there are loads available, some free some to buy), this programs run it your background and free up memory for you computer to use, although these seem to be a good idea there is a debate as to these actually help or hinder things.
My advice is to upgrade your ram , i personally recommend at least 512Mb for systems running windows xp