That's it, I give up...

[DoomUK]

Firstly: I've got 3 sticks of 512mb PC3200, all the same make. When I run a diagnostic over all 3 DIMM's (1.5gb), it doesn't come up with any errors, despite the fact that it used to find an LRAND error with the 1.5gb, but that seems to have strangely sorted itself out ...

OK, here's the second mystery:-

Doom 3 performs WORSE with 1.5gb than with 1gb, there's a considerable drop in fps...

Everything else runs fine; i.e Quake 3, Aquamark3 , Far Cry and so on. Most probably better if anything...

Worth noting that I've recently updated my BIOS, I've got all the latest drivers for everything, and there's no evidence of any kind of virus/spyware etc.


Any suggestions?

EDIT: Not that one can expect that much of an increase in performance with more ram, but you can still see my problem

 

[zerozero]

Some apps give your CPU a hard time with 1.5 GHz. Any program which is able to use 1GB and above will do this since the CPU's take longer to find the proper address. Reduce your RAM to 1 G since no program takes advantage of that much RAM (yet)....

 

[DoomUK]

Fair comment, but why then do HardOCP and the like use 2gb of Corsair in their tests?

 

[beedubaya]

Hmmm...I don't know why you keep having problems. Your system looks great to me. What overclocking have you done?

 

[zerozero]

As newer technology comes out and higher end machines are more accessible, their tests need to reflect what will be more and more common in the months to come in order to give readers a good benchmark on their own new machines. Since newer games will take advantage of more than 1 G of RAM, they are starting their tests to the current limit of hardware to stay current. You can always check your current settings with older reviews (such as my 9800 with 1 G). So when you update, you'll be able to compare with the settings that are now considered top of the line even if your upgrade is in a few months to a year while the same is true for the ones who have very powerful machines now.

 

[DoomUK]

Well my point is HardOCP benchmarked (many of) their Doom 3 tests with 2gb of RAM... So, if what you're saying is D3 can't take advantage of more than 1gb, how did they get away with it? The link to what I'm talking about (if you haven't already read it) doesn't seem to work right now, but I'll put it up when I can.

 

[darkwingduck]

yeah that sucks

 

[Cappy]

well they may be using 2-1gig sticks.You increase the possibilty of confict or error when you fill more memory slots.Plus your memory slows down when all slots are full.I would also take out the extra 512 and run 1gig dual channel or fill all the slots.