Bullets 'n' Babes

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 05 May 2007, 11:15

RAM has dramatically fallen in price recently. I ordered a 2GB DDR2-667 dual channel kit (2* 1GB modules. Didn't buy 800MHz ones cuz I've already got 667MHz ones in my box, 800MHz ones would've been bottlenecked.) for only ~$120NZD. The very same modules were $340 in February.

I doubt that I'll see any dramatic performance increases by going from 2GB to 4GB, but the modules were dirt cheap so whatever.

My friend says that having more than 2 modules screws up the FSB. Virtually all motherboards have four RAM slots, so I'll take his opinion as bollocks.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 May 2007, 13:04

800Mhz chips should run at 667Mhz quite happily and would've futured proofed you, but nice point. As you're running XP I'd say it's even more pointless, but fair enough I guess.

I'd say that's bollocks. Does he have any evidence to back this claim up?

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 05 May 2007, 13:20

bradavon wrote:800Mhz chips should run at 667Mhz quite happily and would've futured proofed you.

True, but the 2GB 800MHz kit was ~$215nzd, I'm trying to hold off on buying crap which I don't need (like these RAM sticks, LOL.), so I'm spending as little as possible. Also these modules should be exactly the same as my current ones (same make & model), so they should be guaranteed to work. (I'm sure you've heard the stories bout mix & matching RAM.)

As you're running XP I'd say it's even more pointless, but fair enough I guess.

I'll be installing Vista Business x64 when I need to, or at least not until SP1 comes out. It's just a buggy POS with a pretty GUI at the moment. I'm sure I don't have to remind you bout how my installation of Vista Business x86 died just after only 3 hours of usage.

I'd say that's bollocks. Does he have any evidence to back this claim up?

*Shrug* He's hardly ever online, so I dunno. He's a hardcore PC hardware guy, but then again he fucked up my PS1 back a few years back whilst trying to install a mod chip. TIP: Don't trust any "Maintenance work" to hobbyist mates who think that they know everything bout electronics.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 05 May 2007, 15:04

If you have 4 sticks then with some setups you can't run in dual channel. And even if you can then you're almost always stuck with the 2T command rate instead of 1T.
So 2 sticks is almost always faster. And if your RAM isn't all matched then it may not want to play together at all.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 05 May 2007, 19:37

EvaUnit02 wrote:True, but the 2GB 800MHz kit was ~$215nzd

I hear you.

EvaUnit02 wrote:I'm sure you've heard the stories bout mix & matching RAM.

Yep. I do usually end up getting the biggest stick I can afford and use it on it's own though. Sure I understand Latency is better with two but I'd prefer to future proof myself and use as few a slots as possible, and bigger RAM is easier to sell too. Well I did all before Dual Channel anyway.

I'm not convinced you'll ever noticed the minute increases/decreases in speed/performance by this kind of stuff.

EvaUnit02 wrote:I'll be installing Vista Business x64 when I need to, or at least not until SP1 comes out. It's just a buggy POS with a pretty GUI at the moment.

Fair enough, and I'm running Vista HP with virtually no problems whatsoever. All my software is working fine too.

I have a couple of niggling issues but none are remotely enough to ditch Vista (which is a big improvement, far more than a pretty GUI btw). Superfetch is bloody amazing, programs just appear (pretty much).

UAC is a bit of a pain but the concept is the right one (don't run as Admin). What I've done as a compromise is download TweakUAC (it's free) which allows you to surpress the UAC prompts. It's not perfect as basically you're saying "yes give it admin" to every prompt but at least you get every other UAC advantage such as Protect Mode IE (which actually runs across the system not just IE), Folder and Registry virtulization. I can live with the prompts when you rename/delete a system file etc...

To remove those you need to login with the Hidden Admin account, which is pretty much the same account you get in XP except certain folders are still denied unless you "Take ownership" of them.

Speaking of the pretty GUI it's nice but pretty pointless. All Aero seems to give you is transparent menus and Flip-3D, woopy doo. If you kill the DWM EXE (that's Aero) you can see the Vista Basic look, it's not a whole lot different really. I hear Aero eats battery power too so I'd definitely to it on the move.

IMO Vista is a huge improvement, you just need to give it time to learn it, assuming that is your hardware and software is Vista compatible of course.

p.s - You can get Vista free right? Why not get UE?

You don't have to use the stuff you don't need and you get the UE exclusive bits too. Windows Media Center is actually really good, but obviously it comes into it's own on a TV. I won't be doing that (at least not all the time anyway) but when I have friends round to be able to fire it up and use it to choose music will be excellent.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 06 May 2007, 11:41

Lourdes wrote:If you have 4 sticks then with some setups you can't run in dual channel. And even if you can then you're almost always stuck with the 2T command rate instead of 1T.
So 2 sticks is almost always faster. And if your RAM isn't all matched then it may not want to play together at all.

Command rate? I have no idea what you're talking about. Currently my two RAM sticks are in dual channel mode.

Lourdes · Post by **Lourdes** » 06 May 2007, 11:56

Command rate is another form of latency, currently you're at 2T which is slower than 1T. It may be that your RAM isn't good enough but judging by that the other two sticks will knock you out of dual channel mode and make thngs even slower. The only advantage you'll get is being able to run large RAM drives.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 15 May 2007, 07:14

Hey Lourdes, it runs in dual channel mode with four modules, you fail.