Memory

[jfg69]

I'm shopping for some memory and was wondering how important a low CAS is? Is it all that releveant? I DO plan on purchasing a matched pair to take advantage of the dual channel capabilities of my MB.

Any suggestion as to brands? I dont think I'm gonna break the bank, was planning on just going with a "value" line from Kingston or whomever.

I can go to PC3200-ddr400, so thats gotta be a HUGE improvement over the mismatched PC2100 thats in there now (a 512 and a 256, LOL)

[DaddyX3]

Ouch! ya, I think you should swing for an upgrade, thats an ! Unless the rest of your system is finely tuned, and your a serious gamer with all the latest and greatest - I would say, no. You won't notice a difference, with the low cas. I would recommend reading some white pages from your MB manufacture about memory. I personally use G.SKILL, but the price has shot through the roof in the last couple years on that name. I hear that OCZ and Mushkin are pretty good also. Of course Kingston and Corssair have been around forever, I'm sure they know what they are doing, and unless you have a nice glass side door on your case, running heat separators on it is a little over the top as well. Get your self a couple gigs though if you can swing it$

[TheeMahn]

Corsair makes some ram that is ULL (Ultra low latency), Ironmahn cooked my 4800 DDR with his 3200 ULL so latency does make a big difference if you are going to overclock otherwise get the lowest latency ram your board will support. If you are on a budget or what have you actually either way I suggest a browse here, some of if not the lowest prices on the net, I love competition

[jfg69]

Corsair makes some ram that is ULL (Ultra low latency), Ironmahn cooked my 4800 DDR with his 3200 ULL so latency does make a big difference if you are going to overclock otherwise get the lowest latency ram your board will support. If you are on a budget or what have you actually either way I suggest a browse here, some of if not the lowest prices on the net, I love competition

Thanks fellas, I'm checkin it out.. I was lookin at OZ with heatsinks, I dunno- is it worth the $ for the sinks and just get 1 gig matched or skip the sinks and get 2GB. Seems like I dont need as much running nix as win. I play O/C once in a while, but never had really good results, so always just left it. Besides, I'm on a 64 system w/ 32 nix.

[TheeMahn]

Corsair makes some ram that is ULL (Ultra low latency), Ironmahn cooked my 4800 DDR with his 3200 ULL so latency does make a big difference if you are going to overclock otherwise get the lowest latency ram your board will support. If you are on a budget or what have you actually either way I suggest a browse here, some of if not the lowest prices on the net, I love competition

Thanks fellas, I'm checkin it out.. I was lookin at OZ with heatsinks, I dunno- is it worth the $ for the sinks and just get 1 gig matched or skip the sinks and get 2GB. Seems like I dont need as much running nix as win. I play O/C once in a while, but never had really good results, so always just left it. Besides, I'm on a 64 system w/ 32 nix.

Do not underestimate a 64 system o/c'd I also run on a 32 bit platform with dual core 64, I have written 64 bit software in the past optimizations have to be passed to the compiler to take advantage of the CPU's structure, the gains are typically minuscule as far as seen realtime, sure benchmarks may tell you it took an additional 1/2 second... The end user does not notice things such as that. With larger programs the time becomes more evident, however Linux was built to be scalable. You could toss in a 1000 core cpu and *nix will use it cant say that for windows. Typically programs in linux are small and utilize a smaller footprint, then for say a windows counterpart, they are not bloated.

1 GB will be more then enough in *nix I think 256 is min fully loaded can run but really slow at 128MB, DSL can run with as little as 64 I believe. Vista ultimates minimum is 1 GB, 4X as much as a full production linux system. If you didn't know before you now know one of the many reasons I hate windows.

Would you like another reason?

[DaddyX3]

1 GB will be more then enough in *nix I think 256 is min fully loaded can run but really slow at 128MB, DSL can run with as little as 64 I believe. Vista ultimates minimum is 1 GB, 4X as much as a full production linux system. If you didn't know before you now know one of the many reasons I hate windows.

That just goes to show how much people are brainwashed into thinking that you need a ton a RAM for a smooth system, I've been brainwashed and conditioned to thinking on a bloated VISTA setup scale I have to come to terms that, VISTA is just that -"bloated" and whats required over there is not required here
ps- min. req. of 1-gig on vista is like a kick in the nuts if you only have 1-gig, VISTA is overly confident in that area

[Ironmahn]

Sorry jfg69, just got to read this post. In terms of memory size and speed... when you run a lot of apps and all the eye candy that make our system look and perform the way they do, then more RAM the better off we are. Personally 2 GB is good all around for the time being, if you game then the future is going to require much more. Not enough and the swap file will cause the app or apps to crash, it's better to have more than not enough. Lower the CAS the better for getting every ounce out of it over clocking (this is where heat sink come in to play i.e. added voltage to be stable at higher than rated speed.) If that is not you cup of tea go with the highest PC rating for your board i.e. PC 4000 and make sure you adjust the BIOS setting to run it at the advertised speed.

Cheers...

[B()X_BREAKER]

Two key factors to consider in ram latency is:

1: Does your motherboard have the capability's to take advantage of the latency's or even support the latency's and voltages?

2: What does your individual processor crave to run at peak performance?
Some like low latency, some just care about high speeds.

If you drop some specs of your board and processor we could help find the perfect match.

[Moebius]

I've heard that Windows cannot address more than about 3.5Gb Ram. I've also heard that this is a limitation across the board with 32 bit operating systems. Is this true of Ultimate Edition?