I don't know much about ram timings etc., and am wondering if someone can take a look at my numbers and tell me if I am really hurting myself with this ram.

I went a little cheap on the ram, so I know it is not high performance.

Am I crazy to NOT upgrade this ram?

Motherboard A8N-SLI deluxe
Athlon64 3700 CPU (San Diego)

Thanks in advance.

Your ram is slow, at cas 3-3-3-8, but I think you'd be only losing a few % in performance by having slower ram.

Here's an article on it(although it's a bit dated).
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118372,pg,2,00.asp

I think I'd live with it until I decided I needed to upgrade to 2gb, then I'd get a nice 2gb (2x1gb) kit with better timings.
Maybe something like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227210

Agreed, it should be good enough for now, though it would be on the top of the list when you next decide to do something about the system...

Thank you everyone for your input. MUCH appreciated. :grinthumb

Can I ask another question then?


Option 1: buy two more sticks, identical to the ones I have now for a total of 4 sticks at 2Gb. (cas 3-3-3-8)

Cost here in Japan about $100 for the two sticks (meaning I have spent a total of $200 on average quality ram 2Gb total)

Option 2. buy two sticks of high performance corsair or kingston at about $400 here in Japan... double the price of average quality ram.

Am I going to get THAT much of a performance jump worth that kind of bucks?

Here is a list of prices of corsair ram here in Japan:
Corsair TWINX2048-3200(PC3200-2048MB(1024MBx2) / 3-3-3-8 / 2x184 DIMM) 184PIN 　 1024MBx2 　 $360

Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2(PC3200-2048MB(1024MBx2) / CL2 / 2x184 DIMM) 184PIN 　 1024MBx2 　 $390

Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2PT(PC3200-2048MB(1024MBx2) / CL2 / 2x184 DIMM) 184PIN 　 1024MBx2 $391

Corsair TWINX2048-3200PT(PC3200-2048MB(1024MBx2) / 3-3-3-8 / 2x184 DIMM) 184PIN 　 1024MBx2 $370

KINGSTON(Hyper X DDR series） Hyper X DDR / KHX3200K2/2G
400MHz DDR Non-ECC CL2.5 (2.5-3-3-7-1) DIMM (Kit of 2) 　 　 2048MB(1024MBx2) 　 $512

Corsair TWINX2048RE-3200(PC3200-2048MB(1024MBx2) / 3-3-3-8 / 2x184 DIMM) 184PIN 　 1024MBx2 $460

I'm pretty sure if you use all 4 dimm slots, it will force the system to use the 2t command rate, which is slower. Here's a benchmark comparing 1 t to 2 t.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3800_3.html
So you'd add the slowness of the cas 3 memory to the slowness of using the 1 t command rate, and it would be slower, how much I don't know.

If you do go for the 2gb kit, I'd choose the second one, based on latency, price, etc.
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2(PC3200-2048MB(1024MBx2) / CL2 / 2x184 DIMM) 184PIN 　 1024MBx2 　 $390

It seems odd to me why it would cost that much in Japan, I mean, isn't Japan like the headquarters of technology and pc manufacturing? If so, shouldn't it actually be cheaper than in the Us? Confusing, IDK.

Many RAM suppliers get their chips from Samsung in Japan.
Why don't you check out their (Samsung's) best offerings locally?

Well, after having been in Japan now for over 8 years, there are many things that have shocked me. One thing is the level of general computer knowledge. Sure there are the people in university designing the stuff, but the average home user knows very little about PCs. When I mention to anyone that I make my own computers, the reaction is usually SHOCK.

For the consumer (like me) high end ram is quite hard to find here in Japan, and the choices are slim. The ones that ARE for sale to the general public are expensive.

Here is one of Japan's well known (PC parts) search engines.

I did a search for 2Gb memory kits, DDR SDRAM, CL of 2 or 2.5

It comes up with 8 results. Out of all the makers selling ram in Japan (including domestic companies), only 8 results meet my criteria, and they are EXPENSIVE.

$1USD = 115 Japanese Yen.

If you want a quick ROUGH price translation, use $1USD = 100 Yen.

In other words, take off two zeros to get USD. 10,000 yen = 100 USD.

Search results are HERE