Memory

[rolex]

I have just ordered a Dell Dimension 9200 computer.
I was given an option of 2048mb dual channel DDR2 at 533MHz
or the same again but running at 677Mhz, the latter costing £80 more.
Can any techies out there explain the benefits of the higher frequency?

Edited by rolex on Saturday 9th December 23:53

[Trooper2]

The faster the RAM is in MHz the fewer nano-seconds it takes to do its work....It's faster. That's the basics of it and I'm sure one of our resident computer Gurus came give you a more detailed explanation.

[ThePassenger]

Let me ask a question first. Are you going to be pushing this computer hard? 3D rendering? Absolutely must squeeze every frame possible out of a game? Video editing excessive files and transcoding between high end formats?

If not, save £80 and go down the boozer with it

The higher the MHz figure the faster the memory runs (obviously), this enables it to push data faster. So if your building a mean machine then it can make a difference, but in everyday use Windows starting 0.00003 seconds faster and Word taking 0.5 seconds instead of 0.6 seconds isn't really a major thing IMHO. After all the computer will spend most of it's time waiting for you to do something

Edit: I could give you the complete run down of Double Data Rate, it's meaning, history and the exact timing differences but... really... do you care about that crap?

Edited by ThePassenger on Sunday 10th December 00:53

[robdickinson]

Faster memory, faster computer, more cash.

Probably, maximum 2% quicker in general stuff.

[rameshuk]

If your system is based on one of the new Intel Core 2 Duo chips,
the memory speed is less important.

[rolex]

Thankyou for the replies and yes it is a 2 Duo chip thingy
My present computer is five years old and comes to a standstill when multi-tasking. Hopefully having two brains in this new computer will speed things up.

[ThePassenger]

rolex said:

Thankyou for the replies and yes it is a 2 Duo chip thingy
My present computer is five years old and comes to a standstill when multi-tasking. Hopefully having two brains in this new computer will speed things up.

It will go like the proverbial off the shovel mate, no worries on that one

[_deano]

on the other hand; core 2 duo can be greatly overclocked without much effort, but you are going to need the 677MHz stuff to get you clock speeds up higher. In theory (if you have the T7200 CPU and 677MHz RAM) you could clock it to 3.4GHz.