jpz

RAM chips are *very* different from flash chips used in SSD's in the way they store memory. They use completely different technology. Your RAM loses all the stored data when power is lost- SSD's hold their memory.

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tubers

yeah.. i know about the windowed mode.. but thanks anyway..

i tried:

Crysis: DX 10, all very high, 1600 x 900 Res, v-sync on

Fallout 3: all ultra high.. max AA AF and windowed at 1600 x 900

Firefox with a few tabs

Yahoo Messenger..

= slow alt+tabbing..

anyway i just tried it..

so i probably should have a better GPU right?

so uber RAM speeds dont really mean much for average consumers?

jpz

How much RAM do you have? Check your RAM usage.

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tubers

i have 4 Gigs of it..

btw thanks for the info abt HDDs (not those SSDs) that its comaparison with the RAMs is that the RAM looses its "data" when the power is turned off..

but on another question..

why not just match the RAM speed with the HDDs speed?

how fast are HDDs anyway? those satas? 150 - 300mbs? so does that mean they take advantage of a DDR2 800Mhz?

or are the SSDs the main reason why RAM speeds are so high?

but i think only a few people really buy SSDs

im a noob btw..so im really sorry points are not acceptable..

jpz

4GB probably isn't enough to run Fallout 3 and Crysis at the same time- my guess is you need more RAM.

I do not understand your question. I am not sure what you are trying to ask.

Performance of hard drives(spinning platter drives) varies from model to model and where the information is stored physically on the disk. Mainstream hard drives are approaching 100MB/s maximum sequential speeds, but there is a lot more to hard disk performance than sequential transfer rates. Where SSD's really shine is access time, random disk access, and IOPS. The performance of a standard hard drive plummets when the I/O is not sequential- during the majority of the time, you're probably getting about 5-10MB/s transfer rate from your hard drive since most day to day operations are not hugely sequential.

Oh, and SATA is an interface for hard drives- most hard drives(including SSD's) use SATA. The SATA interface can in theory transfer up to 150MB/s, and SATA-II can (in theory) transfer up to 300MB/s if your hard drive can supply/write the data that fast. It's kind of like having a 100mbps/1000mbps connection between your computer and your router- your internet speed is still limited to whatever your ISP gives up and you don't get 1000mbps downloads just because your home network is 1000mbps.

I still have no clue what you are trying to ask.

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tubers

thanks for answering a lot of my questions up to now man!

uhmm..

i was just wondering why RAMs have these 800Mhz, 1066, 1333, 1600,1800,2000Mhz speed.. and gain only minimal performance from lets say

800Mhz to 1600Mhz RAM speed.. and u have to pay double and triple for it..

is there like a bottleneck in the system that doesnt seem to fully utilize those speeds?

are they limited by the Hard Drives speed? RAMs do get their data from the Hard Disks right?

how does data go around in a computer in a nutshell anyway?

thanks again for explaining a lot up until now

jpz

No problem, you're quite welcome!

Higher clockspeed RAM generally gets more bandwidth than lower mhz ram. In applications that are bottlenecked by RAM bandwidth, faster RAM can increase performance. A number of people buy faster RAM for bragging rights... most of these people just want the latest and greatest, although there are an elite few who buy the fastest available in order to set new world record benchmark scores.

A more common reason people buy more expensive RAM(keep in mind these are my opinions, not facts) is for overclocking headroom. With today's processors getting more than 50% overclocks, people are running their system bus/front side bus at higher clock speeds than we've ever seen- since most CPU's now have locked multipliers. As you raise the system bus, RAM speed goes up too. Since you need to raise the system bus to overclock, the RAM gets overclocked too. Most RAM sticks won't take a 50% overclock, so the only way to get the system bus high enough is to use a RAM divider. The divider can only go so low, and in the end cheap RAM almost always limits how high you can set the system bus.

RAM is not limited by the hard drive speed- loading data from the hard drive to RAM or saving things to the hard drive is limited by the hard drive speed, but RAM is used for a lot more than that. Data is initially loaded from the hard drive into RAM, but the RAM gets most of its data from the processor. Processors generate loads of data- too quickly to put it all on the hard drive. That is why computers have RAM. Code is loaded from the hard drive to RAM, gets processed by the CPU(which generates lots of data), and then data flies back and forth between the RAM and CPU for a long time until you ask your computer to save something(then some of the data is sent to the hard drive for permanent storage) or you ask your computer to load more from the hard drive.

That is a little too in-depth to explain here. I would suggest using google or your search engine of choice to find some answers to this question.

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tubers

oh i kinda see the point with RAMs..

CPU multipliers are usually locked..

now we have the HTTs and the QPIs right?

when we raise those to OC the CPU.. the RAM also gets OCd.. no choice right?

then we set the RAM ratio right? ( im not sure what that is called: i have a

1:2 , 1:2.66, etc)

so are u saying that we should match the speed of the CPU and RAM?

thanks again! ive learned a lot already from u

jpz

The RAM will get overclocked when you raise the system bus unless you change the RAM divider. You do not need to run the system bus and RAM at the same frequency.

And example of what I was trying to get at before- you'll have to forgive me, I am not as familiar with the latest hardware as I would like to be. I'll use my my sig rig- I've got a Q6600 with some DDR2 ram and an x38 based motherboard.

The stock system bus for the Q6600 is 266mhz, (FSB is 1066mhz quad-pumped) and the lowest ram divider is 1:1. Q6600 stock speed is 2.4ghz, and it has a max multiplier of 9. I could buy DDR2 533 ram and set the multiplier to 1:1 and have the ram at stock speed- but overclocking would be difficult because I could probably only raise the system bus 30-50mhz before the RAM becomes unstable. Now say I decide to replace my RAM with DDR2 666- I can set the ram ratio to 4:5 and run my Q6600 at stock speed with the DDR2 666 at 666mhz. Say I start to overclock- everything is going fine until I hit 300mhz system bus- the RAM becomes unstable because it is running at DDR2 750mhz. This gives me an overclock of 300mhz*9=2.7ghz, which isn't much over stock 2.4ghz. But I can lower the RAM divider/ratio to 1:1 and keep raising the system bus. Say I keep raising my system bus until I hit 375mhz- the DDR2 666 ram hits its limit at 750mhz again. But now I've got my Q6600 running at 375*9=3.375ghz! That's much better, but I still haven't hit the limit of my Q6600. I then replace the DDR2 666 mhz with DDR2 800 mhz- keepin the RAM divider at 1:1 allows me to go all the way to 400mhz system bus without overclocking the RAM! See how I can theoretically get a 50% overclock while still running the RAM at stock? That is not possible with DDR2 533 or DDR2 666 because my RAM ratio won't go lower than 1:1. If I had a golden Q6600 that worked at frequencies over 4ghz, I might even need DDR2 1033 ram unless my DDR2 800 ram sticks were good overclockers.

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tubers

and you basically tell me how to overclock COOL!! man thanks again! btw ive read about the q6600 and its an awesome chip! everybody praises it... specially during its release or early times..

thanks for informing me abt the fsbs are quad pumped.. ihad no idea it was like that.. so the cpu:ram ratio options are given by the kind of ram? not the CPU or the mobo?

you were also right about crysis and firefox and fallout 3.. if u run them all at the same time then my RAM is not enuf.. i checked the windows sidebar as my proof.. my used memory hits the high 90s%..

thanks..

anyway... why are CPUs so fast? reaching even up to 3.2 Ghz while rams are only about 800Mhz, 1066, 1333Mhz+?

wouldnt the CPUs speed be bottlenecked by the RAM?

thanks again! + rep!