Gary said:
What's the difference between DDR PC 2100 and DDR PC 3200 ? I think
even DDR PC 3200 acually operates at 400 MHz so why the numbers up
front ? Excuse my lack of knowledge, it's been 4 or 5 yeats since I've
put together my current system using PC 100 memory that operated at
the same speed as the PCI bus.
Thanks in advance.
Gary
The 2100, 3200 are a relative description of potential bandwidth of the RAM.
DDR400 actually operates at 200MHz. (dual data rate, or ~400MHz)
Generally, DDR400 (aka PC3200) is what you want, if your motherboard
supports it. PC2700 will only work with certain processors and PC2100 will
work with even fewer processors. For example, if you have PC2100 RAM, most
motherboards won't allow you to use a 800FSB processor, such as an Intel P4
Prescott 800FSB. With PC2100 (DDR266) you CAN use a 400FSB or 533FSB
processor. With PC2700 (DDR333), you can use 400FSB, 533FSB or 800FSB CPU.
But, if you use a 800FSB processor, your RAM will be underclocked to
clock-doubled 160MHz (essentially making it DDR320, if there was such a
thing).
There are other types of RAM such as DDR2 (just coming out, you will know if
your motherboard requires it) and PC3500 and PC4000 (not official, just a
marketing gimmick, implying that you can overclock this DDR400/PC3200 RAM so
that it has higher bandwidth) -Dave