What Ram is Faster or Better?

[raider89]

Ok no overclocking, used for gaming.

What would be better, 4 GB 800mhz ram or 6 GB 667mhz ram.

 

[kyeana]

go with the 4GB. If you are just gaming you will probably never use all 4 gigs anyways, so adding the extra 2 gigs wont really do much.

 

[jevon]

The answer to your question is the 6gb of DDR2-667 if there's no overclocking. The difference between the 667 and 800 is that the 800 will allow the CPU to be overclocked further without having to overclock the RAM.

Talking about the speed of the RAM itself, then you need to look at it's timings: 4-4-4-12 is faster than 5-5-5-15, for example.

So to reword your question a little, I would probably take 6GB of 5-5-5-15 over 4GB of 4-4-4-12.

EDIT: I would likely take the 6GB just because the performance difference between 4-4-4-12 and 5-5-5-15 is minor and I often have lots of crap running in the background.

 

[kyeana]

^yea it all depends on what your doing. If you are running a lot of background apps then more ram could be benificial, but if it is just gaming then you probably wont see any difference between the 4 gigs and the 6 gigs

 

[Nik_I]

if you're gaming, then 4Gb is plenty, unless you need to have hundreds of useless memory hogging apps running in the background at all times.

 

[raider89]

yea I use fraps and record while playin the game, but the reason why i ask if because i have 6 gigs of ram, but 4 gigs is 800mhz and 2 gigs is 677mhz. but when I have them all in it turns all to 667.

 

[jevon]

Yep they'll all turn to 667 and whatever the 'slowest' timings are. I'd go for it unless the ram is ridiculously slow, such as 7-7-7-21 or something. Most likely it's 5-5-5-15 or 18 which should be fine. The 667 vs 800 won't have any impact on you unless you get into overclocking.

 

[geofelt]

Assuming you have vista 64 bit, go with 6gb. Vista will try to preload some things for you in advance. Assuming you have a core 2 cpu, then 667 will not make any difference.

Since you have them both, try each config and see. I suspect that you won't be able to tell the difference.

 

[boulard83]

4g ddr2 800 ALL THE WAY.
assuming its 2x2g of some low latency ram. G-skill pi-black 4-4-4-12 (i run this ram 4-4-3-12 1T @ 800mhz 1.9v

6g is useless for gaming. Crysis load my 4g to 50% on HIGH settings 1680X1050.

 

[raider89]

yea i agree, but I do have alot of programs going in the background when playing games etc.