Upgrading RAM question

[dreamtildead]

I have a Dell XPS410 and Im about to upgrade the ram.. I believe its DDR2 because it was purchased a while ago. Im not sure how to tell if its DDR2 or not.. anyway my question is even if it currently has DDR2 ram can I upgrade it to DDR3? I thought they were the same pin count.. any help would be great. thanks

also - how do I tell what kind of ram it is?

 

[mailpup]

No, you can't upgrade to DDR3 from DDR2. The pin count might be the same but the notch in the DIMM slot is in a different position so it won't physically fit.

Use the freeware CPU-Z to determine your RAM type.

 

[dreamtildead]

ok so ive narrowed it down between two different kinds.. they both show the same specs but one is cheaper theyre between corsair and pny..
also when I upgrade I heard that I should swap all the ram sticks out because the pc reads the slowest of them all?...


pny version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...178235&cm_re=ddr2_1066-_-20-178-235-_-Product


corsair version:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...145215&cm_re=ddr2_1066-_-20-145-215-_-Product

are these pretty much the same or is the corsair one worth the extra money?

 

[Kellie Dobbie]

It looks like you can't or doesn't want to overclock your RAM, and between the two, there's not a whole lot of difference except price so I would go for the cheaper one.

 

[Tmagic650]

The PNY memory listed should work fine, as long as the motherboard supports PC2 8500 memory