DDR or DDR2 (and how?)

[Mikebert4]

I've managed to acumulate £900 to spend on a new machine naturally i'm aiming for as future-proof as I can make it.

As a basic Spec I was thinking along the lines of:

AMD64 3200+ skt 939

Gforce 6800GT 256Mb

SLi compatibility (ASUS A8N-SLi (delux or premium), or the MSI Neo4 Platinum Sli)



The problem I have is that I'm wondering wether to go for DDR2 RAm or just DDR, what are the advantages of each situation, and which MoBo's take DDR2?

 

[Me__2001]

at the moment as far as i know, DDR2 isn't compatible with Athlon64's but i could be wrong

 

[Alf]

yep, DDR2 isnt compatatble with AMD boards.and if you can invest in a more powerful CPU (3500?)

 

[muckshifter]

The problem I have is that I'm wondering wether to go for DDR2 RAm or just DDR, what are the advantages of each situation, and which MoBo's take DDR2?

Don't ... well not until 2006/7 maybe, just in time for MS64bit

It should be called QDR ... because the clock speed of the data bus is doubled, and it is triggered by both the rising and falling edges, which means it has four times the potential bandwidth of standard SDRAM devices.

But the bandwidth improvements come at a cost to the latency.

This latency issue caused initial DDR2 devices to run slightly slower than the tried-and-true DDR1 devices. For this reason AMD decided not to upgrade their on-chip memory controller to DDR2, but instead plan on going with DDR1 well into 2005, and perhaps even 2006.

On the other hand, Intel released DDR2 support in their i915 and i925 chipsets earlier this year. This may be a problem for AMD in the coming year, because the DDR2 latencies are coming down, down to 3-3-3 (CAS Latency - CAS to RAS Delay - RAS precharge time) for DDR2-533, with 3-2-2 in the works.

The best DDR1 memory has latency values of 2-2-2. And, DDR1 uses these low latency figures at higher base clock rates, 200MHz for DDR1-400, opposed to 133MHz for DDR2-533, which means even equal latency numbers on the DDR2 RAM will result in worse latencies than DDR1, until the base clock speeds catch up.

AMD aint daft.

I'll put it in laymans terms ... it runs slower & has a slower actual clock speed ...

and AMD have the edge on Intel with AMD's Dual Core CPU's


Numbers, alway the numbers.


Here is a question ... which is faster?
DX4 100 or a DX2 100
No cheating ...

 

[chelseafc2005]

sticxk with a low latency ram ddr1 also you shoudl get a more powerful cpu if you have a budget of £933 u can really splash out on a good cpu like the skt 939 4000 or the 3700 san diego i have heard some great things bout that one but get a skt939 cpu that is the way of the future

 

[Adywebb]

Here is a question ... which is faster?

DX4 100 or a DX2 100
No cheating ...

I'l have a guess and say the DX2 100?

 

[Mikebert4]

Thank's for all the advice, i think I'll take the AMD 3700+ CPU after reading that...

as for RAM, 1Gb of the Corsair TwinX 2-2-2-5 (or similar) i think might just do me.

as for the motherboard I'm stuck between the ASUS A8N-SLi Premium or the MSI Neo4-SLi Platinum, decisions decisions....

 

[Me__2001]

there both great boards, although i prefer the A8N-SLI premium because of the heatpipe on the NB

 

[Kenny]

Id go for the Asus. MSI boards have....issues

DDR2 for AMD is coming Q2 next year I think, BUT thats the only real change. They are moving to socket 940 for DDR2, which WILL NOT be compatable with existing CPUs and motherboards. So...to buy AMD DDR2 means a new mobo, CPU and memory- a lot of money for not much. There will only be a couple of processors out for the new socket as well. It seems a pretty pointless move to me.