Memory? 2dimms at ddr 400, 3dimms at ddr333

[jaydee4854]

I have 3 sticks of 512 ddr 400. My motherboard will surport 2 dimms at ddr400 or 3dimms at ddr 333. I'm i better off running 2 sticks at ddr400 or 3 sticks at ddr333.

Thankyou.

 

[Scougs]

The answer depends on what you are doing and what OS you have.
It would also be good to know what platform you are running (AMD/Intel) and if you know, what chipset you have on your motherboard.

 

[jaydee4854]

I'm running xp home. I have a intel platform. I play some first person shooters online and quite abit of video editing. The chipset is sis648.

Heres my system

P4 2.8 ghz
ecs 648fx-a motherboard(hyperthreading)
ddr 400 3x512(only using 2 sticks right now at 400)
120 gig hd 7200rpm ide
geforce 6800xt

 

[Mondoman]

Try it and find out -- it won't hurt anything to try 3.

 

[Scougs]

I don't do video editing, but I would expect that more RAM would perform better than faster RAM for that application.

As far as the games go, it kind of depends on the game. Most FPS games I think would perform better with 1GB at DDR400 than 1.5GB at DDR333.

You could try and see if you can force the memory to run at DDR400 in the bios with 3 dimms. May work though I doubt it.

Another possibility is trying to overclock the system. Since you are being forced to use a memory divider, the RAM won't hold you back. My 2.8Ghz P4 with the Intel 865PE chipset will run 3.5Ghz easily, but I have to use a memory divider. If I run with matched memory speed I can only get up to about 3.15GHz because my memory isn't stable beyond DDR450.