1GB DDR sticks - need some o/c advice on these...

[JPS]

Here is the deal. Recently upgraded from NF2 system where I was running 2x512MB of Kingston HyperX PC4000 at 235MHz FSB with fairly tight timings. I am now in a Soltek NF3 board that is single channel with only 2 memory slots - still running at 230MHz. Now, I gave one of the HyperX sticks to my father so that he could upgrade from an aging Pentium 200 :eek: to an Athlon XP system (thank you mobile XPs!).

I want to get back to at least 1GB of RAM in my rig and potentially 2GB in 3 months. Why, b/c I use my workstation for software development/compiles - and I mean use it alot - every night for several hours, not to mention testing during the day.

The Soltek NF3 mobo I am on is single channel with only 2 slots. So I will need 1GB sticks of DDR. Now, here are my questions...

1) Is there any advantage to paying for 1GB sticks of PC3200 (or higher) vs PC2700. Yes, I will push/overclock the RAM if possible (just not to the extent that it introduces errors in my compiles).

2) Could I just as easily run quality PC2700 1Gb sticks and see performance that is close to the PC3200?

Reason I am asking is that if I been looking for 1GB sticks of PC3200 and they are not easy to come by or inexpensive (I will sell my HyperX to offset the cost). So far I have found Corsair (in various flavors), OCZ (in various flavors), Patriot/PDP (value RAM), and Mushkin (in various flavors).

3) Who else makes good quality 1GB sticks of either PC2700 or PC3200 DDR?

- AND -

4) Where in the hell can I buy them - ZipZoomFly and Newegg seem to have limited selections at best?

Thanks in advance!

[cuddles]

I wouldn't get PC2700 if you'll be overclocking. The stock timings on 1GB sticks is usually horrible enough, using PC2700 would only further cripple it. 1GB sticks that aren't total ass are hard to come by, good luck in finding some though (I tried at one point, and I failed).

[Soulburner]

2x1Gb PDP Patriot RAM at 240 3-3-3-7 2.85v DC here on i865PE. This is a 24/7 setting, haven't tried max benchable.

[Torin]

Why would you want more than 1GB of ram...?

[TheTrebleKing]

Why would you want more than 1GB of ram...?

the brag factor :toast:

[cuddles]

For rendering and such you need a lot more than 1GB of ram. My friend is running dual Opteron 250's with 3GB of ram and using 2 other computers as render slaves (dual Intel 1.8's I think) and his stuff still takes over 24 hours to render.

This is assuming the original poster has rendering or other such tasks in mind. For a desktop PC, 2GB is utterly pointless, slow and useless :)

[Torin]

He says he uses it for compiling software....

[cuddles]

Yeah, so he'll probably make use of it then. Really hard to find nicely timed 1GB sticks though. I gave up going for 2GB because of that fact.

Best I've seen is CAS3. Never seen CAS2.5 on 1GB sticks before.

[Rix2357]

Task switching while running HL2, NFSU2, is smoother with 2gb. Of couse, benchmark wise, 1GB is faster than 2GB. I am running 4x512mb, and I took a big hit with overclockability and with memory timings, but I can keep stuff such as HL2, or NFSU2 running in the background and switch back and forth without too much disk swapping.

[Torin]

Why in hell would you run 2 games simultaneously?

[Rix2357]

not 2 games, but for HL2, I ran the game, but occassionally switched out to check email. The difference was 10 seconds of waiting for the disk to swap and etc. with 1gb vs. about 3 seconds with 2gb of ram.

[pik-ard v1.1]

JPS, if you've got the money, might as well get this: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-220-011&depa=1

[Soulburner]

Task switching while running HL2, NFSU2, is smoother with 2gb. Of couse, benchmark wise, 1GB is faster than 2GB. I am running 4x512mb, and I took a big hit with overclockability and with memory timings, but I can keep stuff such as HL2, or NFSU2 running in the background and switch back and forth without too much disk swapping.
Exactly. For multi-tasking (aka running a game and 5 other apps at the same time) 2 gigs simply owns. 1 gig simply isn't enough.

If you can stop your system from paging AT ALL to/from the HD you will feel like you have a whole new system...2 gigs of RAM does that for you.

It feels like I did a whole upgrade when all I got really was RAM, but I went from 512mb to 2048mb.

[Gogar]

I'm planning to get an X2 4400+ soon, and i'm looking for some ram for it...
Because the two cores share the memory controller, performance is really important to me.. but i also want 2GB!
I can't find much info about 2GB setups though.. everybody seems to have 1GB these days..
Would it be better to run 4 x 512MB TCCD, or 2 x 1GB of something else? Any better ideas?


I guess 2 x 1GB would be best, because that would allow for future upgrades (incase i ever decide to use it as a server) 4GB would be easy then.
But there don't seem to be any 1GB modules that measure up to the currently popular 512MB modules.