Question about memory slowing down comp.

[Cessation]

Hey all,
I wanted to upgrade my comp to an E6600 proc with new mobo.
Anyway I have 2 gigs of pc3200 ddr1 ram from my system I am currently on.
Will keeping that ram slow down the computer alot compared to dd2?

Problem is that I do not have as much money as I would like to upgrade sadly.

Also do you think prices for the E6000 series will go down more within the next 2 weeks?

TIA.
Cess

 

[Mondoman]

...
I wanted to upgrade my comp to an E6600 proc with new mobo.

You'll save money by getting an E6300 and overclocking.

Anyway I have 2 gigs of pc3200 ddr1 ram from my system I am currently on.
Will keeping that ram slow down the computer alot compared to dd2?

No decent C2D motherboard supports DDR - they all require DDR2. Sell your DDR on ebay.

Also do you think prices for the E6000 series will go down more within the next 2 weeks?

Not significantly.

 

[Cessation]

...
I wanted to upgrade my comp to an E6600 proc with new mobo.

You'll save money by getting an E6300 and overclocking.

Ya, I had thought about this.
But how would I go about it. I have never really OC'd anything and do not want to blow anything up.
For instance all I would do right now as OCing it would be to get a Zalman(?) fan/heat sink.

Unless you know of a cheap watercooling system thats not hard to setup...
Thanks,
Cess

 

[NotAPimecone]

You should be able to OC a 6300 to E6600 speeds on stock cooling. You could probably do it easily with 667MHz RAM and a decent mobo. The Biostar TForce965PT is supposed to be a decent low-cost board for Core2 (I think it's about $105 on newegg), check it out in the 965P shootout article. I like my Gigabyte 965P-DS3 ($145 -$10 rebate), or for a little less you could get the S3 ($125), the same board with ordinary capacitors instead of more "durable" solid-state capacitors. Around the same price as the Gigabyte boards is the MSI P965 Platinum, which seems to offer a few more features too. Up around the $180 mark is the P5B Deluxe, supposed to be a pretty nice board.

How would you overclock, you ask? This guide is a good start. Basically, you'd set your FSB to about 340MHz and your RAM to 1:1, and you probably wouldn't even have to relax your timings (for 667MHz RAM). You possibly wouldn't even need to increase your vcore.

A Zalman would be overpriced overkill for such an overclock (that rolls off the tongue nicely ) A cheap and popular aftermarket HSF for low/medium Core2 overclocks would be the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, if you don't trust the stock cooler.

 

[Cessation]

Wow thank you for your replies.
Now the Biostar TForce965PT board takes ddr2 800 ram.
With that would I have to oc the ram aswell?
Cause you do talk about OCing the 667mhz ram.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[forumtroll]

As for price drops:

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4393
http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=714230&starttime=0&endtime=0

 

[NotAPimecone]

Wow thank you for your replies.
Now the Biostar TForce965PT board takes ddr2 800 ram.
With that would I have to oc the ram aswell?
Cause you do talk about OCing the 667mhz ram.

Thanks again for your help!

It should have a 1:1 memory ratio, that's what you typically want to use when overclocking.

Very roughly, OCing a C2D works like this:
CPU speed = multiplier * FSB
RAM speed = 2 * ratio * FSB

The default FSB is 266MHz, and the E6300 has a multiplier of 7, so 7 * 266 = 1862MHz is where we get its speed from. At a 1:1 ratio, the RAM frequency is 2 * 1:1 * 266 = 533MHz ("PC2-4200").

Raising your FSB to 340 MHz would get you:
CPU = 7 * 340 = 2380MHz
RAM = 2 * 1:1 * 340 = 680MHz <- just a wee bit over spec

If you're worried about this

Notice: Only DDR2-800 memory supporting JEDEC approved 1.8V operation with timings of 5-5-5 or 6-6-6 is supported on Intel Desktop Boards based on Intel 965 Express Chipsets.

I think it applies only to 800MHz RAM or higher. Basically, if your RAM is incapable of running settings like that at 1.8V, you won't be able to boot. Most 800MHz RAM comes with a default SPD setting that accommodates this so you can at least boot and get into the BIOS to change the voltages and timings to their proper values. If you buy 667MHz RAM, this shouldn't be an issue.

Now, one thing we haven't asked is what you've got now (can any of it be re-used - obviously not the RAM, but case, PSU, HD, etc), what your budget is, and what you plan to use your computer for. Depending on all that, we might be able to better ascertain what the best choices would be.