Is pc2700 worth it?

[dmccoll27]

Is getting pc2700 over pc2100 worth the price. I am upgrading to a Athlon XP CPU and new Asus a7v333 motherboard. With the system bus at 266MHz will 333MHz pc2700 make a difference?

Thanks.

[saphalline]

If you're building a new PC or doing a core upgrade from older hardware, then yes, moving up to PC2700 RAM would do you some good. Keep in mind that you'll need to run the Athlon XP's FSB asynchronously with the RAM (ie Athlon XP runs on a 266MHz bus - PC2700 RAM runs on a 333MHz bus), but the KT333 chipset supports that just fine.

There will be those who say the extra memory speed isn't worth it, but when DDR RAM first came out, it wasn't much better than SDRAM! Now look at it! DDR RAM alone is enough to gain major points in just about every benchmark test, and if your old config was based on SDRAM, prepare for some real speed. :D

[mjc]

I think that things like amount of memory and speed are not going to be able to be judged by the old ways of doing things anymore.

For a new build, like saphalline said, yes it is definitely worth it, it is also worth it to have as much as you reasonably can. It just doesn't make sense to limit yourself to the OS minimum or slightly above that. win9x (including ME) can have problems with more than 512MB of RAM, but there are work arounds. XP and 2k can actually use much more than that, so for them shoot for at least 512MB. Speed also, get the fastest your machine will support.

If your current hardware cannot support running PC2700 at speed then, no it is not worth it unless you are getting a great deal on it and can use it in the near future on hardware that will fully support it (and even then it may not be the best way of doing things).

[Paully's5.0]

I was trying to figure out what to do as well. I just finsihed building my first system consisting of an MSI KT3 Ultra ARU board, XP1800 and 512 pc2100. From my understanding, the only time pc2700 really makes a difference is when the processor is running at a 166 FSB to match the memory 166FSB. Well to get the processor to do that, you need upgraded cooling, unlocking the XP processor...all of which costs more and more money. On top of the more expensive ram. Plus you need to know what you are doing to overclock the processor. Money talks, so I am not overclocking, you won't see a performance difference while using the machine.

So if you have $$$$$ go 2700
otherwise stick with 2100

But that is just me:cool:

[rond36]

Paully's5.0

From my understanding, the only time pc2700 really makes a difference is when the processor is running at a 166 FSB to match the memory 166FSB. Well to get the processor to do that, you need upgraded cooling, unlocking the XP processor...all of which costs more and more money. On top of the more expensive ram. Both the Asus a7v333 and MSI KT3 Ultra ARU board support PC2700 DDR without over-clocking the processor.

Almost all newer motherboards are capable of running the RAM at a different clock rate than the CPU. For example my Soyo board with a P4 at 100MHz system bus QDR 400MHz FSB. My RAM is running at 166MHz DDR 333MHz and nothing is over-clocked. If the board supports PC2700 it will run it at 333MHz without over-clocking the processor.

dmccoll27
Would you buy PC100 SDRAM for a motherboard that uses PC133 SDRAM?

If You are buying new RAM get the fastest that your board will support but if you already have PC2100 use it.

If you are buying it buy only Crucial, Samsung, or Kingston.

[iisbob]

Hmmm, the only problem i have with this is that according to AMD the XP series CPU only supports 2.1 GB's per sec data transfer rate ( pc2100 ), so by going up above that data transfer rate you are not increasing performance, since the CPU is only capable of using 2.1 GB's of data.

So you gain of a precentage of speed , without any benefits of more data being effectively transfered.

I would suggest sticking to the PC2100 memory until the new Opteron core comes out and the new Quad DDR specs ( DDR400 ) is available.

[Paully's5.0]

Yes the KT333 boards support pc2700, but the performance gain for the amount you pay isn't worth it in my opinion. UNLESS you are overclocking your processor to match the speed of the pc2700.

[Mark Miller]

Quick question.
Just how much of a speed difference is there between pc 2100 and pc 2700, will you even be able to tell, and what processes is the extra speed good for? I understand about games, but what about surfing, will it help?
Great days ahead Mark

[iisbob]

i'd say roughly 3.5%; and no, the increase in speed would not give you an edge in surfing-and even OCing the CPU won't help simply because you've only then increased it's calculating speed-you still haven't changed the the amount of data it can recieve. The only way to change that is to change how it pre-fetches data, and that means a physical change, which is what will happen with the newer core in the Opteron.

[Mark Miller]

Hi isibob,
You knew this question was comming what is Opteron, and why should we care {ha,ha,}
Regards Mark

[saphalline]

no, the increase in speed would not give you an edge in surfing-and even OCing the CPU won't help simply because you've only then increased it's calculating speed-you still haven't changed the the amount of data it can recieve. The only way to change that is to change how it pre-fetches data, and that means a physical change, which is what will happen with the newer core in the Opteron.

Wait a minute, iisbob, I thought that if you increase the bus speed (in this case from 133MHz to 166MHz to match DDR2700 RAM) then you can increase how fast the CPU accepts/sends data. Or were you thinking primarily of changing the multiplier? Confused.

Hey Mark Miller, the Opteron is AMD's new CPU core, for us(!) the home users. I don't have a whole lotta info on what improvements AMD has done, but I'm willing to bet that iisbob does. I do know that a bus speed improvement is imminent, whether QDR like the P4's or faster DDR (perhaps 200MHz DDR to keep up with DDR3200 RAM?).

[Rick]

Now It’s my turn to Muddy the waters :)

In every system there is a Bottle neck.
Today as in the past the largest Blockade is the system Buss.
With memory/cpu and chipset being the second
Then Cpu and Memory coming in third

If you are using Memory / CPU intensive code.
Then having the FSB matched will provide a performance gain.

If however you add anything to that equation ( System Buss ) you once again have a bottle neck
The CPU has to wait for buss
And Any or all gains have and or will be lost.

From my point of view
In a true multitasking environment.
Having the memory and CPU matched is the optimal setting.
If you can have the Memory FSB a little faster then you are simply removing one possible delay
You saved your system a clock cycle :) OH Joy :)