Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Memory > PC100 & PC133 - What to do?

PC100 & PC133 - What to do?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Memory - PC100 & PC133 - What to do?

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I have an older Compaq Presario 5006H PC that currently has 640 MB RAM; 2 x 256 PC133 & 1 x 128 PC100.

I know the PC100 slows down the entire RAM to it's speed, but would I be better off with running only the 512 PC133 than 640 at the PC100 speed?

Other info:
AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz 200 FSB
nVidia GEForce4 MX4000 64 MB graphics card
Windows XP Home SP3
Compaq 06E4h Motherboard

Thanks.

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Hmm, well it depends on if you're using clsoe to 512 MB of ram. If you are then keep it, if you're only using ~300, which you probably are using at boot, then kick out the 128...But I mean, it's 100 vs 133...time to upgrade my friend

Reply to jeteryankees22
- 0 +

What tool do you recommend I use to tell how much RAM I'm using?

Reply to ken h
- 0 +

Physical Memory, Available?

Reply to ken h
- 0 +

With IE7 & Outlook Express running, it says:
Total 654896
Available ~201500
System Cache 341332

Reply to ken h

Your on the ragged edge of no go. The amount of speed difference between pc100 and 133 is minuscule but adding a 256 or 512/133 in place of the 128/100 should give you a somewhat noticeable increase. Don't spend good money doing this cause you should be saving up for a four generation newer box.

T

Reply to dthunderbird
- 0 +

Got it, thanks.

Reply to ken h

Addendum: anyone contemplating this should read Tom's article http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,1232.html specially page 15.

T

Reply to dthunderbird

Either way will be a bust. The difference between 133MHz and 100MHz, assuming the motherboard even supports 133MHz memory bus, is going to be negligible. The difference between 640MB and 1GB, also negligible. You don't have any shared graphics memory, and have over 200MB RAM available for use even with IE 7.0 and Outlook Express running. You're not running "low" on available RAM, particularly for Windows XP. Anything more 512MB on Windows XP begins to court the law of diminishing returns, unless you are running applications that really need it (and it doesn't appear you are).

Reply to tcsenter
- 0 +

Thanks again.

I'm not looking to buy more RAM, just wanted to know if I was using what I had as well as possible.

The 128MB PC100 was off an old PC. When added, it seemed to improve performance compared to the 512MB PC133 alone.

Reply to ken h
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