Corsair RAM question

[BodiesOfLight]

I have 4 sticks (4x512MB=2GB) of CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200). Alright, now if I were to get 2 (2 x 512MB) sticks of Corsair's XMS TWINX1024-3200C2 / DDR-400 (XMS-3200C2), would there be an improvement even though it would be less RAM?

 

[crazyfrenchman27]

No. Save your money and improve your video card.

-Matt

 

[blip]

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[blip]

Yes and no. Yes it may improve your performance. No you probably won't notice it except, maybe, on benchmarks.

Unless you are a serious system tweaker who wants every last bit of performance no matter how small (or maybe non-existent)... Or if you are a fairly hard core overclocker... I wouldn't do it.

 

[Zorander]

Save your money.

 

[Elec]

IF you're playing modern games, having less RAM may actually hurt your performance, even if the RAM itself is faster.

A gig is probably a good minimum anymore but some games will take advantage of the 2 gigs you already have (as you probably know).

 

[skudmunky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyfrenchman27 No. Save your money and improve your video card. -Matt

Yep, do that. I did it, and I got a huge increase in games. I need more ram now though, I keep running out and it has to dump memory every so often in CS 1.6. Doesn't do it in any other games though, its weird.

 

[BodiesOfLight]

Well, I'm not looking into it to play games. I'm a graphic designer and I need a dcent amount of RAM to run memory hungry applications i.e. Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, etc (the whole Adobe Creatve Suite)... I'm pretty happy the way my system performs now, but I know it could be much faster. It still lags with really high resolution files (huge files), which I have very little patience for when I'm try to focus on what I'm doing.

I've been looking on Asus' site to see what I could upgrade to and would would be compatible with my motherboard (A8V socket 939 K8T800Pro).

This is what they recommend as far as Corsair RAM for my motherboard.

 

[cerbie]

A faster CPU or more RAM might help, but faster RAM is kind of a waste, ATM. Photoshop has shown itself to be very CPU-dependent, so that would probably be better than more RAM, unless you're swapping to the HDD a lot with these files.

 

[BodiesOfLight]

Well, I have a real decent CPU..here.


Hmmm, I don't know, might need to upgrade my CPU to a dual core, bahh, I don't know. Might just stick it out for awhile, maybe overlock it. Don't really feel like paying $300 + on a new cpu, like a dual core or soemthing.

 

[cerbie]

Yeah, try some mild OCing. Also, with the s939 A64, you may want to check your RAM's speed, and see if it is running at 400MHz. I don't think they will be, but I may be wrong, there (I think they are supposed to back down from 200 to 166).

 

[terrymx]

yeah go to your bios and see if its running at 200mhz fsb (= 400mhz full).

also you can try to in crease your ram timing. how fast you can set your ram timnig depends on the ram quality and how much you over clock, lowe value means faster. i manage to run te corsair value select as 6-3-3-2.5 (or 3-3-2.5-6 for some) for my xp2800+. if tis too low it can cause instability or unable to start up then increase it, if should be able to manage 7-3-3-2.5. its a small improvement but for such a good system already now its really up for tweeking.

i'm skeptical since you already have a great cpu and a good ram. i'd like know what video card you have. also are you doing 2d or 3d graphic designing? if 3d designing then a good video card is must.

 

[BodiesOfLight]

2D graphic design. I'll try that tweaking.

 

[mjg]

the lowe cas will make a difference if u do over clocking.

I'm running 4x512 meg Corsair XMS XL 2-2-2-5 now, and well its pretty damn sweet. My processor isnt exactly a spring chicken, but its clocked at 3.2 ghz (its a 2.4c) and well i think games and everything else run damn smooth.


Get the better cas if u wanna overclock, yet on the minimum get atleast a gig of ram for nowadays applications its really the way to go.

 

[BodiesOfLight]

My memory is running 1:1 DDR 200, so should I change it to 2:1 DDR 400? and I'm not sure where to see how fast my processor is running and were to tweak that in the BIOS.