Which would offer better performance?

467 Views 10 Replies 8 Participants Last post by Zoki318, Nov 17, 2008

Bennylava

Discussion Starter · Nov 15, 2008

I have a total of 3Gb of DDR2 RAM in my possession. But, i have a problem. I have 2 1Gb sticks of PC2-5300, (newly ordered from newegg) and 2 512Mb sticks of PC2-4200 (that orginally came in the OEM pc that i am upgrading)

Now... which would offer more performance, running the 2Gb of PC2-5300 by itself, or running all 3Gb of the RAM that i have? The motherboard has 4 slots so i could put all 4 sticks of the mismatched RAM in there. I have heard of people that have gotten the full performance potential out of a faster stick while also running a slower stick at the same time. So i am not really sure what to do here. Please advise.

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_

· #2 · Nov 15, 2008

why the hell did you buy 5300!

667 is old, at LEAST get 800(6400) or higher.

You shoulda got 2x2GB so you can run dual channel.. as this is DDR2

but i recon the 3GB ram would do more good imo

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br3nd064

· #3 · Nov 15, 2008

You can fill in your specs here.

I think the ram will run at whatever speed the ram in the first slot(closest to the cpu) is. If you put the 5300 ram in the first slot, then it will force the 4200 stick to also run at that speed. Make sure you put the slower stick in the first slot, because the faster speed will kill it pretty quick.

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corky dorkelson

· #4 · Nov 15, 2008

if you have xp, run the 2gb kit by itself. if you have vista, do the 3gb all together.

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18 is # 1

· #5 · Nov 15, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by *_*

why the hell did you buy 5300!
667 is old

Careful...check my sig.

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br3nd064

· #6 · Nov 15, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by 18 is # 1

Careful...check my sig.

lol, yeah 18's ram is pretty insane...

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vi3t_boy

· #7 · Nov 15, 2008

i would just run 2 sticks of the faster Ram that you got. Why? Because i want it to run dual channel.

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Bennylava

Discussion Starter · #8 · Nov 17, 2008

Thanks for the help everyone. I ended up just going with the 2Gb PC2-5300. The mobo does not seem to like all that mix and match stuff. It wont boot if i do. As for why... PC2-5300 is as fast as my mobo will go..

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BlankThis

· #9 · Nov 17, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by br3nd064

Nope, it will just lower the clocks of the faster RAM to those of the slowest.

~B~

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br3nd064

· #10 · Nov 17, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlankThis

Nope, it will just lower the clocks of the faster RAM to those of the slowest.

~B~

I've heard it both ways. Some say that it will default to the slowest stick's speed, buy others say the stick closest to the cpu dictates what speed the others run at. Honestly, I've never tried it out for myself, so I'm not positive.

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Zoki318

· #11 · Nov 17, 2008

It's going to run the speed of the slowest stick. No matter what.

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