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[WHOAguitarninja]

Right now I have 1gb of DDR2 ram. I don't know the speed, I think it's 400, but I'm not sure. If theres no steps between 400 and 533, then it's 400, but if there is, then I'm not sure.

I've been thinking of upgrading to 2gb, but was curious if it was possible/better to change whats in there now for faster ram. I've been told that you need to have the same type of ram in all slots in your computer.

3 questions...
1. Is there a way to tell EXACTLY what kind of ram I have? I don't really feel like calling dell to figure it out.
2. Is there some way of telling what types of ram are compatible with my motherboard?
3. would I be better of getting a gig of faster ram, or another gig of what I have now (assuming I can't use different types of ram).

Thanks in advance.

 

[teh_pwn]

1GB is fine unless you're playing high end games on high end settings on high end video cards. Or doing professional work.


1. You can find out by knowing your CPU. Or the RAM usually has a small sticker or label on it saying the speed.
2. As long as the speed is right, and it's DDR2, it should work. There are rare exceptions of certain brands not working with certain motherboards, but this is usually with overclocking RAM because you'll need a specific voltage range. But with value RAM it shouldn't be a problem. Never hurts to check tho. If you go the the RAM's webpage they usually have compatibility lists.
3. Buy the cheapest brand name memory. You could spend $200 more on RAM to get low latency. Wow, you'll get a whopping 2% system performance increase....for $200...

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Thanks. The issue arose because sometimes BF2 absolutely CHUGS on medium settings and my computer is no slouch otherwise (3ghz, 6600gt). I may just slap another 512 in there and call it a day. 2gig's may be overkill.

 

[teh_pwn]

I wouldn't recommend putting 1 more stick in there.

You've got an intel chipset right? Well it needs an even number of memory sticks to run in Dual Channel. It's supposed to effectively double your RAM speed, but it doesn't really do that much. However, it makes a lot of difference with intel chips. (AMD does too now, but when it first came out, it was worthless for AMD chipsets.)

Make sure if you buy 2 sticks that they are identical to ensure that DC works.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Alright, so that brings me to another question I was about to ask.

I cracked my computer open and I do indeed have DDR2 400 ram. I seem to have 4 slots, but they got me a bit confused.

the slots are arranged like this...

|| ||

In groups of two, damn near touching within the group, but the groups are far apart. The clips in each group are white on the left and black on the right. Currently theres a 512 in each white thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is important in some way. Is this something I should be paying attention to?

And yea, it's an intel chipset.

 

[Yusaku]

1GB should be fine for BF2.

 

[Daigoro]

Alright, so that brings me to another question I was about to ask.

I cracked my computer open and I do indeed have DDR2 400 ram. I seem to have 4 slots, but they got me a bit confused.

the slots are arranged like this...

|| ||

In groups of two, damn near touching within the group, but the groups are far apart. The clips in each group are white on the left and black on the right. Currently theres a 512 in each white thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is important in some way. Is this something I should be paying attention to?

yes. ill let someone more informed explain it to you (or i can look it up when i get home). it matters where you install the RAM.

the black and white slots would be the different groups (or channels) where the sticks work together. they alternate, so you wouldnt want to put a pair of RAM in where one is in the white and one is in the blakc, they need to match up, and the slots alternate.

1GB should be fine for BF2.

not if you wanna play 64 vs 64 according to the developers.

 

[teh_pwn]

In groups of two, damn near touching within the group, but the groups are far apart. The clips in each group are white on the left and black on the right. Currently theres a 512 in each white thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is important in some way. Is this something I should be paying attention to?

Not sure about the spacing but the colors probably indicate channels. If you put 1 stick in each color and left the others empty you wouldn't get dual channel.

Also be aware that there are some cheap motherboards out there that won't do dual channel with more than 2 sticks. I dunno as I don't know your motherboard.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

Not sure about the spacing but the colors probably indicate channels. If you put 1 stick in each color and left the others empty you wouldn't get dual channel.

Also be aware that there are some cheap motherboards out there that won't do dual channel with more than 2 sticks. I dunno as I don't know your motherboard.

Interesting, I'll look into that. Thanks for the information.

 

[Yusaku]

not if you wanna play 64 vs 64 according to the developers.

Since when did BF2 support 128 players?

 

[Musashi Wins!]

I've been wondering about this too. I need to add a bit of ram to a dell. My question is....isn't there a shareware program or anything that will look specifically at your ram configuration before you open it up?

 

[Priz]

Yes, there are 3 free tools I can think of right now.

The first is CPU-Z (I think at www.cpuid.com). That will tell you the manufacturer, part #, etc.

The second is SiSoft's Sandra. www.sisoftware.co.uk I believe. Tells you everything about your system you ever wanted to know. (Get the Lite version, it's more than enough)

We've been working with a company called work4sure on our online tool at my job.
You go here - http://www.memoryx.com/systemcheck.php - run the little tool and it returns a ID # which you send to us and we can see your specs internally. We go to another URL to actually see what's in there, you don't see it, though. Once we have that finished, there'll be another URL which will be on our site where you run pretty much the same program, it'll tell you what memory you have, ECC or non-ECC, your machine make/model and what it's max is for memory, then at the bottom of that mini-summary page, you'll click a link and be taken to your machine's specific page to order ram for it.

Musashi: You can go to www.memoryx.net and on the left, click Dell and go through the pages to find your specific machine and what it comes with/what it's capable of. A decent # of people don't realize this, but for example a laptop if it says 2 slots, 1gb max, they for some reason think they can put 1gb in one of the slots and ignore the 512mb as the largest we have listed per slot and go find 1gb on our site, order it then when it doesn't work, want us to give them all this free stuff and free overnight shipping of the wrong part as well as the correct part to them because we intentionally made them buy a part that doesn't work in their machine. I love how it's always our fault.

Last friday, some guy bought a 512mb that didn't run and I told him there was enough returns of that part that I don't think we'll be carrying that brand for much longer as their memory has so many returns. He took that as some weird sign and started insisting instead of just giving him a Samsung to replace this PoS memory and eating the difference, we give him a free upgrade to a 1gb because we knew we were intentionally selling him poor quality memory (instead of him ordering the Samsung off our website for $10 more in the first place).

 

[shantyman]

2gig's may be overkill.

No, it isn't. I have a dual 2.0 GHz G5 at work (obviously not a gaming machine in any way) and it has 2 gigs. You become used to everything simply "working" better. Everythign is more responsive. If you can afford it, get more, you will not regret it.

 

[Priz]

1-2gb is fine but unless you're running WinXP 64-bit or some other non 32-bit OS, you don't want to exceed that. I've been hearing how you have to kludge things to get 3gb to work and people who buy 4-10gb in their servers are always bitching at me about how it doesn't all show up.

I'd say go 1gb, 1.5gb or even up to 2 with the prices of memory these days, but that's the limit for now. Anything else is just excess you'll have to do some work at getting to run (and what really supports more than 2 anyway? Battlefield 2? Maya?)

 

[LuCkymoON]

hwinfo is a good utillity.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

Priz, you are very helpful, thank you.

So I have a Dell with 512Ram and the page tells me that you should install in pairs. So I must have two 256 in there now...that sort of stinks, I was hoping to buy one more 512 module, but I'll need to buy two for it to work correctly.

 

[belgurdo]

Priz, you are very helpful, thank you.

So I have a Dell with 512Ram and the page tells me that you should install in pairs. So I must have two 256 in there now...that sort of stinks, I was hoping to buy one more 512 module, but I'll need to buy two for it to work correctly.

That's the problem I've got too...my computer uses RDRAM or something and it also must be bought in pairs, but I haven't been able to find any for under $100. Sucks

I'm thinking I might bring my video card up to 2005 standards so that I don't have to keep playing GTA in low settings mode and worry about the memory later...

 

[Musashi Wins!]

Yea, basically it will cost me (since I need to do it in pairs) almost $200 to put 1gb in, but it allows 4 slots so the end result will be 1.5 gb. Which I'm sure would help this pc in many ways. I thought about upgrading my card as well but...I don't know, that seems so pointless to do just for gaming at this point. I think it would be a better deal to buy a next gen console and just buy a new pc down the line when the whole thing has become too ancient for my needs.

 

[cvxfreak]

I really want to push my PowerBook to 1.5GB RAM but the prices are just insane (CompUSA had 2700 RAM for $300!). 512 is good, but I want double that for the best possible performance on this thing. =(

 

[Priz]

Want to talk about nuts memory pricing?

http://www.superwarehouse.com/Xerox_128MB_Memory_Module/097S02913/p/118787
http://www.office.xerox.com/cgi-bin/detail.pl?sku=097S02913

http://www.memoryx.net/pc7-2456.html

Same memory (144pin, PC133, 128mb) too.

I've been helping someone get the right memory for his printer and so that's how I found this out. (the prices they charge for hte same chip).

If you wanted to put more ram in your desktop, for the price of Rambus memory (I've seen people spend ~$600 for a gig of it) you could spend $450-500 instead on a 3000+ complete Athlon 64 setup and go with standard memory over this overpriced Rambus stuff. A gig of Pc3200 and you're more than set for less than a gig of Rambus alone.

I still need to harass Spencer to see about whipping up some sort of GAF coupon to save some $$$ from us. Maybe this week.