Couple of questions about RAM

[calza]

Firstly ... am I right in thinking this is 1333mhz?


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Secondly ... I always read that ram should be paired in slots 1&3 / 2&4 but my motherboard colour codes slots 1&2 cream and 3&4 blue .. does this mean this is the actual pairing?


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And thirdly ... What's going to be better for general performance / gaming. 4Gb 1333Mhz or 8gb 1066Mhxz?

 

[Guest]

First: yes, it is a 1333MHz memory ram. Are you static free before touching the components and frying it?

Second: you always read it, but it's not the global rule. If you have doubts, read the motherboard's manual. But yes, the colors indicate this is the actual pairing.

Third: higher bandwidth and memory avaiable are the best. 8GB 1066MHz will be okay (and is a better choise) if it reach the recommended settings (like Battlefield 4).

 

[Tradesman1]

Yes it's 1333, and NO 1066 is not better, it's slower freq wise and less bandwidth, generally you want the sticks in 1-3 or 2-4 (from CPU) to have a stick in each channel for dual channel (some mobos differ, what mobo and CPU do you have?

 

[Guest]

Oh, really?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-i7,2325-11.html

http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/ddr2-800-vs-ddr3-1333-does-speed-matter/

 

[Tradesman1]

Back in 2008 and 2009, the earlier days of DDR3 (where your references come from), it was very expensive, and hard to justify the much higher price, much as it is today with DRAM above 2133 or 2400, the accepted standard with todays systems is 1600/9 as entry level....also the OS and apps back then didn't utilize DRAM as they do today, I prefer to live and act in the present, not 5 years ago and look at hardware accordingly, i.e Haswell thrives on faster DRAM

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell

 

[Guest]

DDR2 or DDR3 stands for the THEORICAL maximum memory bandwidth, even if it is 40%, he won't get much loading Skype, Firefox and any of the current game. It will lag.


Plus, the benchmark of 5 years ago did not change that much. The memory RAM never evolved as faster as the CPUs.


(From 2013)
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/upgrades/performance-pc-memory-is-it-worth-upgrading--1208324
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-bandwidth-latency-gaming,3409-7.html

 

[Tradesman1]

Sorry DDR2 and DDR3 are the specification of the actual type of DRAM modules as defined by JEDEC - has nothing to do with the theoretical memory bandwidth. That falls into subcategories broken down by data rates and MT/s i.e. 1066 sticks theoretically have a MT/s bandwidth of of appr 8500, which is the same between DDR2 and DDR3 1066 sticks...which is why there are PC2-8500 and PC3-8500 sticks

 

[calza]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies!

Yes I always (try) to discharge static before handling any components. The motherboard is an Acer FRX780M. I plan to upgrade soonish but wanted to delay upgrading the ram, but read the i5 4670k only goes down to 1333mhz ram so wanted to see if what I had was compatible.