Memory upgrade

**Raffaz** · July 11th, 2004, 12:25 PM

Just thinking of upgrading my pc, my memory is probably slowest part on pc, so im gonna start there. Ive got an asus a7n8x e deluxe mobo, with 1gb of corsair XMS2700 ram, amd athlon thoroughbred 2400+ processor. Any reccomendations for memory upgrade that will work reliably on here. Cost should be no more than £300 for a gig.

**TechZ** · July 11th, 2004, 01:57 PM

Isnt 1gb of PC2700 good enough? What are u doing on that PC of yours?

**Raffaz** · July 11th, 2004, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by TechZ

Isnt 1gb of PC2700 good enough? What are u doing on that PC of yours?

I thought someone might say that

. I do alot of CAD work, and alot of digital photography, and gaming. The obvious move would be to goto pc3200, which is what the board runs at, im just curious if the board would be to handle faster memory or not? And im also curious about what other people are running with this board. Cheers

Mick

**TechZ** · July 11th, 2004, 02:21 PM

If the board can handle it, then go for it, whats the prob?

**Raffaz** · July 11th, 2004, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by TechZ

If the board can handle it, then go for it, whats the prob?

The prob is i dont know if the board can handle any more than pc3200

**NooNoo** · July 12th, 2004, 05:21 AM

The motherboard manual will tell you.

**confus-ed** · July 12th, 2004, 05:43 AM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

The motherboard manual will tell you.

Google told me

The 128-bit TwinBank DDR Memory architecture doubles the DDR 400 (PC3200) bandwidth.

& so this seems to be lots of questions about nothing, so I'm with TechZ

BUT your £300 will buy you an amd 64 & motherboard & some DDR 400 if you shop really carefully

{where the hell are you buying from that charges £300 for 1gig of DDR 400 ? - I'd start shopping somewhere else !!!} (most definately if you can 'realise' some cash for your board chip & memory combo via say e-bay !)

**NooNoo** · July 12th, 2004, 05:50 AM

crucial is on offer

**confus-ed** · July 12th, 2004, 07:05 AM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

crucial is on offer

On offer ?? £186 !!!!!! (after 'coupon rebate' - this stuff never makes sense to me, just tell me the bottom line please !).

It ain't just the memory 'quality' thats the issue, it can well be the boards 'fusiness' ..

I buy 'no-name' ddr 400 to go with those boards @ about £115 or therabouts, I've given up with 'branded' stuff as it seems a rip-off, now I just buy from folks with good returns policies or who do decent quality control & test their stuff first, you can get 10 year warranty on 'no-name' too

, ok so my chances of having to return it are approximately double (but I still regularly return corsair, crucial, samsung, Infineon etc anyway) but so's the price (or nearly)

**Raffaz** · July 12th, 2004, 07:09 AM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

On offer ?? £186 !!!!!! (after 'coupon rebate' - this stuff never makes sense to me, just tell me the bottom line please !).

It ain't just the memory 'quality' thats the issue, it can well be the boards 'fusiness' ..

I buy 'no-name' ddr 400 to go with those boards @ about £115 or therabouts, I've given up with 'branded' stuff as it seems a rip-off, now I just buy from folks with good returns policies or who do decent quality control & test their stuff first, you can get 10 year warranty on 'no-name' too

, ok so my chances of having to return it are approximately double (but I still regularly return corsair, crucial, samsung, Infineon etc anyway) but so's the price (or nearly)

Ive been using corsair for a few years now and never had any probs, so i just prefer to stick with what works, ive had problems with other memory brands in the past. All im asking is what memory other people are using in asus a7n8x board, and what problems, if any, they have had.

**Raffaz** · July 12th, 2004, 07:11 AM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

Google told me

& so this seems to be lots of questions about nothing, so I'm with TechZ

BUT your £300 will buy you an amd 64 & motherboard & some DDR 400 if you shop really carefully

{where the hell are you buying from that charges £300 for 1gig of DDR 400 ? - I'd start shopping somewhere else !!!} (most definately if you can 'realise' some cash for your board chip & memory combo via say e-bay !)

Ive never bought a gig of memory for that price, i said i would pay no more than that.

**confus-ed** · July 12th, 2004, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by Raffaz

Ive been using corsair for a few years now and never had any probs, so i just prefer to stick with what works, ive had problems with other memory brands in the past. All im asking is what memory other people are using in asus a7n8x board, and what problems, if any, they have had.

You get problems with Rolls Royces too

, but I get a lot more pissed off when I paid 'premium' in the first place .. you buy what you want - you will anyway !

All I'm saying is that I can think of 'wiser' ways to spend my money, I think if you are doing cad, then the 'fatter the processor the better'.

Your xp2400 is 266fsb (I don't think they made any variants) so it seems to me 'unlikely' that you'll get any that much boost by having to run your memory ascyronously (on that chipset - if you search about a bit I think Platypus one of our members came up with a 'good explain' of why faster memory doesn't necessarily mean faster performance) ..

The only trouble I've ever had with these boards 'really' was actually with corsair memory !!! - ceratin batches of corsair 3200 had improperly programmed SPD commands.

**Raffaz** · July 12th, 2004, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

You get problems with Rolls Royces too

, but I get a lot more pissed off when I paid 'premium' in the first place .. you buy what you want - you will anyway !

All I'm saying is that I can think of 'wiser' ways to spend my money, I think if you are doing cad, then the 'fatter the processor the better'.

Your xp2400 is 266fsb (I don't think they made any variants) so it seems to me 'unlikely' that you'll get any that much boost by having to run your memory ascyronously (on that chipset - if you search about a bit I think Platypus one of our members came up with a 'good explain' of why faster memory doesn't necessarily mean faster performance) ..

The only trouble I've ever had with these boards 'really' was actually with corsair memory !!! - ceratin batches of corsair 3200 had improperly programmed SPD commands.

So your saying i should change processor first? What would you reccomend? I could either go for athlon barton, or change mobo aswell and get athlon 64. Would an athlon 64 make much difference, when ACAD is 32 bit? Cheers.

**Stalemate** · July 12th, 2004, 08:43 AM

I have been using using Corsair XMS PC3200 sticks on my A7N8X-DX (AthlonXP 2100+) since Jan. 2003 and it works just fine.

Be careful when tweaking the RAM settings. Mine works fine at 6-2-2-2, but different sticks work faster and are more stable using different settnigs.

On another note, if speed is what your looking at go SATA drives instead with whatever RAID config you think best (0 or 1).

That will improve your overall speed more dramatically than upgrading the CPU.

**Stalemate** · July 12th, 2004, 08:47 AM

Originally Posted by Raffaz

So your saying i should change processor first? What would you reccomend? I could either go for athlon barton, or change mobo aswell and get athlon 64. Would an athlon 64 make much difference, when ACAD is 32 bit? Cheers.

It would improve it, but only slightly.

Check out the Tom's Hardware article on the Athlon64 for more info.