RAM!

[808Alaska]

Hey everyone, i was wondering what would be better/faster with two different types of ram.

If i had DDR3 1066MHz 240 pin with a latency of 7 or DDR2 1066MHz 240 pin with a latency of 5?

and also does anyone know why you can upgrade from DDR to DDR2 but not from DDR2 to DDR3 in laptops, and you can upgrade from DDR2 to DDR3 but not DDR to DDR2 in desktops? if this is even correct? why?

Also i just noticed on my laptop that i have a front side bus speed of 665MHz but my ram is only 333MHz is it possible for me to get faster DDR2 ram for my system? if so what would be my max MHz that i could go up to? cuz i heard that your RAM will only operate as fast as the FSB speed? is that true?

 

[Yami]

If i had DDR3 1066MHz 240 pin with a latency of 7 or DDR2 1066MHz 240 pin with a latency of 5?

The lower the latency, the better. So the latter.

and also does anyone know why you can upgrade from DDR to DDR2 but not from DDR2 to DDR3 in laptops, and you can upgrade from DDR2 to DDR3 but not DDR to DDR2 in desktops? if this is even correct? why?

Um, you can't. Motherboards support only one type of RAM.
And while DDR3 fits into DDR2 slots (desktop), it won't actually work.

is it possible for me to get faster DDR2 ram for my system?

It may be possible but the performance increase would be unnoticeable.

 

[Muffin Man]

well, for the ram timings, you are comparing DDR3 to DDR2.

DDR3 ram at cas 7 is pretty good. DDR2 ram at cas 7, not so good, considering that cas 5 or 4 ram is sometimes the same price.

edit: but Yamikotai already explained, lower is better.

and there is no noticable difference in performance between DDR2 and DDR3 until you get DDR3 at 1600 speeds. DDR3 at 1066 is just expensive ram that you wont need.

 

[Trotter]

Whatever the limit is for the motherboard is the fastest performance you will get out of the RAM, no matter what its speed actually is. If the motherboard has a ceiling of, say, PC800, PC1066 will only run at PC800 speeds.

 

[808Alaska]

ok but how do i know what the max speed of the mother board is? is that the front side bus speed? I have CPU-Z if that helps at all?

 

[hikaricloud]

Tell us what board you have, CPU-Z should have the model number in it.

 

[baron5]

i wouldn't forget ram is actually doubled as its ddr (double data rate) so your ram is probably running at ddr2 667mhz or close.

for your question about ram modules ddr/2/3, desktops have three pins dimms, 182 (old p4 style) which is ddr modules, 240pin which is current ddr2 modules, and 240-pin made for ddr3, now none of these dimms are backwards compatbile and will only work the dimms they are made for, some motherboards have both ddr2 and ddr3 dimms but these are usually not good mainstream boards.

 

[808Alaska]

I have a GM965 chipset

 

[Tenenbaum]

In that case, you will need DDR2 667MHZ RAM