Memory question, 512mb or 768mb? Your see why click here!!

[mokaboy]

Hi



Right, i have a nice stick of Kingston HyperX 512mb pc3200 sitting in my computer right now. It runs fine and i will get another stick to make it 1gb soon. I just want to know if making it 768mb would be better as i have a 256mb Infineon pc2100 256mb sitting here on my desk.

I know 768mb would be better than 512mb but being that its a much slower speed and is not a stick of 'gaming ram' would it make it faster/slower/both lol?

Need a bit of advice.

Thanks
Moka :giddy:

 

[DonNagual]

Many boards will not boot at all with two different speed sticks, and if they do boot, they are prone to random crashing.

Best case scenario is it will automatically downclock your 3200 ram to 2100 ram and it will run smoothly.

As to which would be faster, 512mb at 3200, or 768mb at 2100? I do not know the answer to that question.

 

[mokaboy]

everything you told me there i knew, and it will automatically downclock the hyperx ram to pc2100 speeds thus them both running at the slower rams speed.

The bit you cannot answer is the bit i need to know

Thanks neway

Moka

 

[howard_hopkinso]

IMHO it would make it slower, and prone to crashes.

Depending on your fsb speed your slower ram would end up being oc`ed and unstable.

Regards Howard

 

[mokaboy]

well im pretty sure the slower ram would not be touched, the hyperx ram PC3200 would end up being clocked at PC2100

 

[Tedster]

you're taking two steps forward and one step back. By mixing different speeds of ram, your system will run only as fast as the slowest one if it works at all. Yes, having more memory is good and programs that preload will remain in memory, but if your system has incompatibilities, it's not worth the headache. You would be far better off getting matched memory. Memory is cheap.

Never mix brands or speeds of memory.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

As to which would be faster, 512mb at 3200, or 768mb at 2100?

Depends on your computer usage. You can monitor the memory usage with Performance monitor or Task Manager. If it's over 512 MB most of the time, the extra memory would be faster than swapping to disk, even when the memory is PC2100.