2x2GB

[shacharoren]

hello,
i'm trying to deside what kind of memory to get!
now i'm setting these day's my new workstation on a platfom of asus extreme striker, E6850, and 2 8800GTX in SLI.
now i would like to get either 4GB or 8GB of DDR2 for photoshop and HD video editing uses.
now even if i will get 4 GB i will still want to get the 4 GB in 2GB modules so i could upgrade to 8GB in the future.
now i have 3 option on my mind:
1. OCZ Technology Vista Upgrade Edition 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit (193$)
2. Kingston HyperX 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 DIMM Memory Kit (299$)
3. Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Performance 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit (268$)

which one will be better? basically money in now an issue, and as you can see the 3 are PC6400 800MHz CL-5 and there's still big diffrance in price!

i would also do not know what will be the diffrance between 4 to 8GB? is the OS will work with 8GB of DDR2?

thank you,
S.

 

[pinaplex]

you will need to run a 64bit OS or a version of windows server 2003 for all the memory to be recognized.

 

[shacharoren]

thanks you, but again,
are you talking about 8GB?!
and which one of the memories are better?
will it help getting a 1066MHz memory?
tnx.

 

[shacharoren]

guys, as soon as i get a good answer regarding the brand's i will buy them.
please try and help me choose...
why is there a big diffrance in price when the timeing and speed are the same?

 

[Gravemind123]

Go with the cheapeast, the other ones are most likely overpriced. I can't really see you needing more then the speed of DDR2-800, even if you wanted to overclock.

 

[brownlove]

Your system is so powerful, you really won't see a difference unless you're using some benchmark utility. However, buy the higher priced RAM to satisfy your concience, so you'll never have the thought in the back of your mind that you didn't get the best.

 

[shacharoren]

well it seems odd to me that the hyper X of kingstone will cost more than 100$ more than the OCZ for no reason?!?
but again, i don't really know.
i also read some article in the mean time and i think i'm set on 2x2GB 800MHz, which is good so far, but there are 2 things i'm not sure about yet,
1. is the brand, i want to get a good one.
2. i would liike to know how much of a diffrance will i have between 4 to 8GB with let's say CS3 preformance?

 

[Qwakrz]

I doubt you will see any difference between 4 and 8 GB with current games / software. Unless you use some really memory hungry applications such as databases or some high end graphics rendering then its just not worth it.

Also, to use 4GB (or really anything above 3GB) you must go with a 64bit O/S. Windows Vista 32 generally only sees between 2.4 and 3.2GB of ram depending on your graphics card and soundcard setup (the O/S can map 4GB of addresses and add-in cards and graphics cards needs some of this for their own use so it gets subtracted from the total 4GB). This means jumping to Vista 64 or XP64.

Now, the main reason for the "you wont see any difference" is that 32bit apps are limited to 2GB of address space for themselves (can be increased to 3GB for some using different windows switches). This means that if you run a single 32bit game (only game I know that uses 64bit windows is FarCry with the 64bit patch) it will only be able to use 2GB of ram for itself. However Windows will use the remaining space for disc caches etc so you may notice the system is more responcive.

Personally if you go for some PC6400 2x2GB kit then this will allow you to add a further 2x2GB kit later and give you the best of both worlds. Also, unless you overclock its not worth getting anything faster than PC6400 (800MHz) and 2GB sticks currently dont come in anything but CAS5 moduals (really would have liked some CAS4 2x2GB sticks rather than my 4x 1GB CAS4 ones)

 

[Rusmurf]

CS3 shows a nice performance boost with 6GB of ram, running in XP64. It only showed a small boost at 4GB. The more ram you have, the more the OS will allocate to CS3, so if your manipulating large images. Go with 2GB sticks regardless, because you'll want more mem down the road.

 

[shacharoren]

guys i think i'll go with 2x2GB, and see how it works for me, and just than try and deside if i want to add 2 or 4GB extra,
but again, the brand really doesn't matter?!
could be such diffrance in price and for now reason?!
ihave onlythe brand problem left!

 

[Kohlhagen]

get PATRIOT.. they rule

 

[mis33]

get PATRIOT.. they rule

Are you talking about this one:

Patriot Dual Channel DDR2 4GB 6400 (800MHz) CL 5-5-5-12 Eased Latency Kit - PDC24G6400ELK

There are not too many choices on 2x2GB memory modules.

 

[Evilonigiri]

Just stick to the popular brands, it really doesn't matter since they are basically the same. Just buy from a trusted company like Kingston, Cosair, Crucial, Patriot, OCZ, A-data, G-skill...etc

 

[jevon]

Another reason you will see price differences is in the latency timings, for example memory rated at 4-4-4-12 will be more expensive then something like 5-6-5-15 which is probably around what that OCZ Vista ram is running around. The lower the timings, the 'faster' the memory is, though it's not always going to be a HUGE factor - but I'm not much of a media editing guy so I'm not too sure of the impact faster latency timings would have for you. Personally, I would find the best price for timings for 4gb DDR2-800 around 5-5-5-15 or so.