4x512Mb or 2x1Gb

[mountainbiker619]

I currently have 2x512Mb of Corsair XMS 3200C2PT on a A8N-SLi board. I am going to upgrade to 2Gb to hopefully resolve a BF2 Fps issue. My question is, will I lose enough performance to justify the $130 cost difference between purchasing another 2x512Mb over 2X1Gb.

 

[mountainbiker619]

Nevermind..found it out myself. In my case it is not worth the extra money to purchase 2X1Gb sticks for just a 1 to 2 percent performance gain.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/2gb-ram_7.html

 

[chuckshissle]

I don't think there is much difference when it comes to performance assuming the same model. However when it's time for you to upgrade to 4 Gb of memory you could say bye bye to the 4X512 Mb and purchase 4x1Gb memory. So if your not planning of upgrading your system for a while then 4x512 memory are fine. But with the windows vista coming out with x64 environment it is inevitable that more and more memory well be needed to run the system. For example most of stock computer today would choke playing BF2 on decent quality settting, now I imagine BF3 sometime in the future. Like lets says last year almost all the stock computer have 512 mb of memory with them. Now with all the advance software and application of today, that just wont cut it. So it's not gonna be long that computers with high performance in mind is going to need more than 2 Gb of memory. So that is up to you.

I am using 3 Gb right now. Corsairs of coarse, 512 Mb in 1 and 3 slot and 1 Gb in 2 and 4 slot. Im pretty sure by next year with the windows vista x64 Im gonna have to ugrade to 4 Gb. So it is not gonna be long till I would have to replace the 512 Mb dimm.

And for BF2 yes you need more than 1 Gb to run it smoothly. Like you said your ugrading to 2 Gb and should run the game with no problem.

 

[mountainbiker619]

Its a given fact that in the future I will need to upgrade to more than 2GB's of memory. Its also a given fact that in the future DDR will be fully replaced with DDR2 on all platforms and my AMD 939 socket will be replaced with a new socket. I am quite sure only 2GB's will suffice my current needs. When it comes time for me to use more than that, it will be time to upgrade to DDR2 and the new AMD socket. Every time someone makes a computer hardware purchase, you are rolling the dice as to how long before it is outdated. It wasn’t long ago that I purchased a 6800GT, and just recently I upgraded that to a 7800GT, and I am quite sure that by mid this year my 7800GT will be outdated. It is too costly to stay up with modern technology, so for me I can only concentrate on my present needs.

 

[chuckshissle]

8) You got a point there.

 

[kumana1]

im not sure how accurate this is, but here are my thoughts:

memory timings
i would think that you could have tighter memory timings with the smaller memory as opposed to the larger(1gb) sticks. the only time when you might consider this would be on overclocking. i dont know where you stand on that subject and/or whether or not you currently have your system overclocked.

again, these are my thoughts, i could very well be wrong. i haven't looked at the difference between any products and their timings, so this is just an assumption.