Is value ram good enough?

[Srek]

It was good enough for me on several occasions.
Cheers
Björn

[CG-Gordon]

Thanks Björn, will I notice a performance difference between 667 and 800 RAM if im not overclocking?

[Srek]

If you don't use the higher data rate the higher specification does not make any difference.
Cheers
Björn

[BoostAbuse]

Thanks Björn, will I notice a performance difference between 667 and 800 RAM if im not overclocking?

Short answer, nope you won't notice any difference if you're not OC'ing. If you want to get all technical though, keep an eye on what your sync is on your FSB/RAM ratio this is something not many people think of and it's actually a very nice performance boost. I own a Q6600 that I decided to OC and am using Patriot Extreme Performance DDR2 800 ($80 for 2x1gb sticks) which means the memspeed is 400mhz. Stock FSB on a Q6600 is 266x9 = 2.4 so for most cases you will end up with a sync of 5:6. Now if you were to match the speeds by say upping the FSB on the Q6600 to 333 and purchasing DDR2 667 you would have a perfect 1:1 sync without generating too much heat and running the C2Q in the sweet spot. Doing this with DDR2-800 becomes much more difficult because you either need to run a 400x8 for 3.2ghz or 400x9 at 3.6ghz (don't even try this on air cooling, I had to go water).

Personally, I'd suggest going with the DDR2-667 and upping the Q6600 to a 333 FSB. Lots of threads around about OC'ing the Q6600 and at 333mhz you're hardly even pushing the chip.

[Rist]

RAM this cheap you cannot go wrong (plus good for overclocking if need be):

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-058-GL

I remember a few years ago i paid £125 for 1GB worth of VALUE RAM.

[CG-Gordon]

Thanks BoostAbuse, I've not done any overclocking before but the 333 with 667 ram for free sounds good, and not too tricky.

Cheers for the link Fl3wk, I actually came across some kingston 2gb sticks for £40 each, which leaves me with 2 slots free to upgrade later (if I actually need more than 4gb).

I'm almost certainly going to go with 667 value ram, thanks for all the help! :thumbsup:

[VeryPC]

It may be worth going with the 800 only to push down the latency timings a bit when running it at 667.

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