n00beh Help

[MAS]

Hi guys,

Since building my first sytem a year ago I've been a little out of the hardware loop, so I wonder if someone can explain something to me?

My current system is with an Athlon XP1800+ and 256mb crucial DDR 2100.

I want to upgrade the memory to 512mb ( a single stick).

Then in about three months I will add another 512 stick (to get a total of a gig)

Then in about 9-12 months I plan to upgrade the processor. By that time, my existing processer will be a bit sluggish and the processors around the 3ghz mark will have dropped down in price a lot.

My question is this: I know that memory is backwards compatible, so when I buy a new 512mb stick, I want to get something faster than DDR 2100 so that when I upgrade the processor I wont have to change the memory again.

So do I need DDR 2700 or 3200? I know that the newest Athlons use a 333fsb...and I assume that's what I'll go for when I upgrade.

So I *think* DDR 2700 would be fine....but are there any reasons to go for the DDR 3200? Which I think runs at 400mhz...

*EDIT* Okay, I see the new Athlon 3200 uses 400mhz....I'm not sure whether I would go that fast when I upgrade, or just settle for a 3ghz at 333. But should I just get the fastest memory I can? The 3200 isnt any more expensive than the 2700...

Cheers,
MAS

[Mallus]

Go for the pc3200 or higher. You don't lose anything by going for the higher rating memory and it will be more future proof (and will allow you to overclock further if you decide to go down the overclocking route!). You can easily run pc3200 at a lower speed and probably with tighter timings as well.

[evildoc614]

I agree go with the pc3200. you said in your first post that you will wait for the 3ghz chips to drop in price some more there is no reason you can just get the pc3200 chip and when you decide to upgrade your cpu and mb just through that in there.. it might cost a few extra bucks but you will save in the long run.

[Platty]

yup. PC3200 is only very slightly more expensive and will allow better upgrade options in the future.

[Austin]

Definitely PC3200 (DDR400) preferably a good brand like TwinMOS, Crucial or Adata. You don't mention a mobo in your plans, you'll surely need that as you current would be limited to 266FSB right? Finally you don't need to worry about affording the 'top' CPU as if you buy the right mobo, cooler, RAM and CPU you can easily achieve XP3000+ to XP3200+ speeds out of any TbredB or Barton CPU (£40-70). If you may want to game with this system then definitely look to the gfx card first, by far the most vital part and even a £70ish GF4TI4200 on your current XP1800+ and 256MB PC2100 would fly!

[Gr44]

are Adata good? i thought they were a budget brand?

*edit*

Cruical arent that good either, i didn't think, Corsair is though.

I'd recomend:

Corsair, Twinmos, Samsung, Crucial is ok, but i didn't think it was overally well rated ?

[malfunction]

Originally posted by Gr44
are Adata good? i thought they were a budget brand?

*edit*

Cruical arent that good either, i didn't think, Corsair is though.

I'd recomend:

Corsair, Twinmos, Samsung, Crucial is ok, but i didn't think it was overally well rated ?

AFAIK the issue with Crucial's PC3200 is that the timings are lower than most (CL3 instead of CL2.5). I've owned lots of Crucial RAM (slower stuff though - PC133 and PC2100) and never had a problem with it. Got TwinMOS PC3200 at home (2 sticks) and in a lot of machines at work (not sure but probably about 10 sticks) and no problems with it so far and I've just upgraded a bunch of machines using samsung PC3200 and no problems as yet with that either (14 out of 14 sticks working OK). Corsair have a great rep but I've never used them as they seem a bit overpriced IMO.

I think the main thing is not to buy generic - if no-one wants to admit to making it then it can't exactly be top stuff can it? I've had a lot of trouble at work with RAM sold as generic - the guy who used to build the PCs used generic RAM (actually mostly Nanya stuff) and I've had over half of it drop dead as well as some DOA stuff that was also Nanya - around 10 sticks in total but then again that could just be bad luck.

Last time I checked www.komplett.co.uk had the best prices on TwinMOS, www.ebuyer.com had good prices on Samsung and www.crucial.com/uk is pretty much the best place to buy Crucial RAM suprisingly enough... If you go for the crucial use the BBUKWEBPROMO code for a 5% discount on your order (you can only use it once - presumably they check the name and address or possibly credit card details). It's worth checking out a few sites though as I haven't checked prices in a month or two.

Other than that what's already been said is spot on - consider getting a TBred B / Barton chip, an nForce2 mobo plus 1 or 2 sticks of PC3200 and overclock the CPU as much as you can.

I don't see dual channel DDR as being necessary but the dual channel boards are usually of a much better spec than the single channel boards (SoundStorm and SATA being the main things - I don't need dual LAN and I'll probably never use firewire).

For what it's worth a low end single channel board is about £30 less than a high end dual channel board - the cheapest single channel board I've found is this Epox one from komplett:

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?a...rpID=5&cks=PRL

My personal choice would be the Asus A7N8X deluxe (v2.0):

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?a...rpID=5&cks=PRL

But there's a few fans of the equivalent Abit mobo here (NF7-S v2.0) so I might as well mention it before everyone else does :

http://www.cpucitystore.co.uk/catalo...products_id=45

[MAS]

Thanks for all the help...

As far as the mobo goes, I bought a Shuttle SN41G2 about 3 months ago...it will run a 333mhz FSBs, so it should be fine for a future upgrade to 3ghz.

(I think according to Shuttle a future BIOS update would allow a processor with 400mhz FSB?)

I'm going to go with the DDR 3200. Anyone got opinions on the following? I just want good quality RAM - I wont be overclocking.

So the choices are:

Crucial DDR 3200 (put off this by the fact that it has a CAS rating of 3)
Corsair Value Select DDR 3200
Geil Value DDR 3200

They're all about 70 quid, which is all I really want to spend. If anyone has any other suggestions at £70 or less, let's hear em

[evildoc614]

Crucial DDR 3200 is good i cant speak about their overclockablity but they are vey dependable. Geil and Corsair make very good ram as well. just stay away from the cheapo cram ( generic ) as they have always been problematic for me. at one time i would have said there is no diffrence in ram but that is NOT the case, good ram is vital!

[Austin]

Most of Geil's earlier RAM was cheap crap that was over-volted to hell in order to run at its claimed speed. Crucial have always been known for absolutely rock solid reliability and a wonderful guarantee, service etc. Corsair is considered the best but it's no where near worth the asking price. Adata is often as cheap as much generic stuff but way way better. Samsung is very well praised and widely used in the US, not so common over here. TwinMOS is probably still the top pick as you get great RAM that's often o/c'able with a good latency time and is very well priced (CPUcity & Komplett IIRC). Absolutely no point in getting 'dual matched' stuff and there's very little point in getting 'low latency' (esp on Dual Channel mobos) or stuff rated faster than PC3200 esp if they demand a higher price.

nForce2 Dual Channel (orig & Ultra400) are about 5% faster than nForce2 Single Channel (plain 400) and the other common chipsets from VIA and SiS. nForce2 Single Channel are still more than fast enough and as said savings can be pretty good too, www.dabs.com do a DabsValue BioStar nF2 for just £40!

SN41G2 use the nForce2 IGP and as such are not capable of 400FSB but you may still get pretty close. The IGP is about as good as onboard gfx gets but still WAY WAY slower and less capable than the current entry level offerings which sell for around £40. If you do use IGP then definitely use Dual Channel as it gives your gfx almost double the speed (GF4MX440 vs GF4MX420).