So you have a new PC with Vista 64 (or premier) and now you need RAM. You've probably done your research and found that 1GB of RAM is not enough for what you want your PC for. Perhaps a dose of Dream Weaver, PS CS3 or a bit of gaming here and there. Well all those applications need RAM.

The RULES hold more dear now than they did before. So before going any further, I will repeat the rules. RAM over CPU!!!

That's right - RAM over CPU.

Here's the thing, if you are on a budget, the worst thing you could do is spend more money on a CPU and end up with 1GB of RAM and expect an earthshattering experience with any of the Vista flavors. You may want the Core 2 E6800 and would be willing to use 1GB of RAM with it - if you are using dedicated graphics thenyou're in pretty bad shape. Vista just won't work the way you want it to. In fact someone with E6600 and 2GB of RAM will have mre fun on their computer than you would. So spend more on RAM if performance is what you're looking for.

That said here is the real problem.

You have looked around and seen different speeds for RAM and the prices vary greatly with some costing a few hundreds more than others. This is the point where even battle scared veterans make mistakes. Because most of us think SPEED!!! So you ended up buying the E6550 because it was a good deal and you wanted to add RAM instead of that super fast CPU. You also have Vista Ultimate 64 and you're down to the last question, Should you now buy 2GB of DRR2 1066? Or perhaps 2GB of DDR2 800. How about the much cheaper DDR2 667?

Are you better of with 2GB or DDR2-1066 OR 4GB of DDR2-667 - when you add it up, they cost the same.


£100 for 1GB of DDR2-1066 (1 x 1GB)
£100 for 2GB of DDR2-800 (2 x 1GB)
£100 for 4GB of DDR2-667 (2 X 2GB)

Well - any comments people, what's the best buy? Which direction to go?

1) Forget DDR2-1066. It's overkill for every CPU except perhaps the E6550. Every other CPU can OC very very well w/o it. If not OCing, then really don't worry about it.

2) 2GB is kinda tight for Vista, since it has far more services and other items running by default, but I would hate to only have DDR2-667. I would likely go for 2gb of DDR2-800 with the plans to add 1gb (2x512) or another 2x1gb when I had the funds.

Yet another question you must ask yourself in regards to the RAM is: Are you going to Overclock?

If the answer to this question is a "no" then you are safe getting the "slower" RAM. RAM today is "double data rate" so you take the speed and chop it in half, like so:

DDR2-533 /2 = 266
DDR2-667 /2 = 333
DDR2-800 /2 = 400
DDR2-1066 /2 = 533

Then you look at your CPU speed. Today's Intel lineup works on multipliers of FOUR (regardless of 2x or 4x cores), and depending on the one you pick will be running at either 1066 or 1333 (the newer E6x50)so we get the follow when we slice and dice them:

Q6600, E6600, etc = 1066 /4 = 266
E6750, etc = 1333 /4 = 333

*soemthing to keep in mind, there are other multipliers involved here to calculate the processors speed, but they vary much more. For example, the Q6600 has a multiplier of 9, so 266*9 = 2.4GHz. Just FYI incase someone was wondering, the multiplier for each processor will be on its spec sheet.

Hokay so, you can see that if you are NOT overclocking you will be fine just matching up the 266's or the 333's to have your RAM running 1:1 (most efficiently) with your CPU. This is where you can shop around with the $ you saved and put it towards RAM with tigther timings, ie 4-4-4-12 or whatever - that speed is far more important than the FSB speeds we just went through.

If you THINK you might be overclocking, then don't freak out and go overboard with the 1066 because it gives you more "room." Slap yourself and realise if you're on the fence, there's no way you're going to be going balls out for a top OC. Set yourself a reasonable goal, maybe 2.4 to 2.8 or 3.0 for example depending on the processor, and look at the RAM accordingly.

So for the Q6600, to get to 3.0GHz you will need to increase it's FSB from 266 to 333 (*9 for CPU speed), which means you only need DDR2-667.

And actually, if you have a new motherboard (P35 or X38, they run stock at 1333FSB. This means for the Q6600 you can simply make the change in bios to get it to run at the same speed without having to mess around with any voltages or anything - simply change the FSB and you're getting pretty much a "free" 25% OC

Anywho, really hope that makes sense haha.. happy shopping!

Why did you choose to focus on Vista 64 which almost nobody uses except for us techies? And what is 'premier', is that how they refer to Ultimate in GB?

I'd get 2 gig or 3 gig ddr2-800 for Vista 32 and 4 gig for Vista 64, which is in fact what I have. Of course you may as well get 4 gig for 32 since RAM is chaeap enough but you will only get to use about 3 gig of it in 32 bit.

i got 4gig of DDR2-800 with Vista 64 Ultimate and its a pain in the ***. First of all, you may or may not have problems installing the windows. Then once installed, you may have problems booting up at all. Then if you own a Creative sound card, you will have a helicopter flying through your speakers all the time....and this is all due to having 4 gigs of ram. However, normal vista 64 usage takes up 1 gig of your ram, so its worth it.

Kabobi. I have a sound problem too. If I warm boot I have about a 50% chance of getting odd sound problems that makes games unplayable. If I cold boot I never get this!

But I get it on both XP and Vista 64 AND Vista 32 whenever I have all 4 sticks in my system - though I will say I hav not fully confirmed this with XP which I hardly ecer use anymore since Vista is by and large working.

What MOBO you got? I suspect the problem is there as much as in the OS, else we'd all be getting it. You might have problems with all 4 sticks in any OS too, have you tested that?

Well I did 4X1Gig of Cruciall Balistic DDR-2 pc6400 that clock's like crazy still allow's the JDEC"S I think. It load's at 1.8 but the running vcore is 2.2 and the whole deal was under 250.00 us. 2 just isint enough when using the premium Vista OS's. Your desktop will use about 800mb of ram with all th bell's and wistle's. BA

sedaine,

What a pointless thread...

4x2 is my solution. 8 GB of RAM and be done with it.

On a budget? Buy 2x2 and wait till 2GB sticks come down in price.

4GB's is the sweet spot for Vista 64 right about now, more is wasting money and less hurts your experience.

Next year you will start to see aps that will want more ram, I know a few people will remember when XP first came out 512MB's wasn't too bad, but look now people are running into the 3GB's limit and wanting more.... So give Vista some time and you will see 12GB's installed on systems by its end and maybe even more.

lil update on this , DDR2 rams so cheap now , 1066mhz all the way , just payed a little over £100 for 2x2gb OCZ reaper 1066 ram . gives me good potential for my wolfdale 3.0ghz when the overclocking begins. (hoping for 4ghz!)

Right now I am running vista 64 with 8 Gigs of ram and wish I could run more. I have also run Vista 64 with 4 Gigs of ram and there is a difference. Spend the extra money on ram if you can. I have a Q9450 running at 3.6 GHz. I have Corsair XMS2 PC6400C4DHX running 5-5-5-12-2T running at 900 MHz at 2.1V and I have received some very high numbers is SiSoft Sandra memory bandwidth test. I am continuing to tweak my system to find the sweet spot. Good luck. I don't play games but I do have 2 8800GT's in SLI and receive scores in the lower 18000's with this setup. I mostly do video editing and Photoshop work so 8 Gigs will have to do until Skullrail becomes more affordable.