Faster memory or More memory?

[Kangaroo]

Which of these two systems would be better?

AMD Athlon XP2500+ 1.83GHz FSB333
1.5GB DDR333 memory (ignore the details )

OR

AMD Athlon XP2500+ Overclocked to 2.2GHz FSB400
1.0GB DDR400 memory

I have just ordered 2 sticks of 512MB DDR400 memory, but I currently have a stick of 512MB DDR333 - I have 2 options, I can have 1.5GB DDR333 memory, or 1.0GB DDR400 memory.

Overclocking the CPU is not a problem.

If I were to play games like Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004 then which configuration would be best?

 

[Him]

Are they in dual channel?

Do the second one up. FSB is all bumped up, and most things you use prolly wont even use more than 1gb memory.

 

[Chankama]

I don't have Doom 3 or UT4. And I highly doubt people who have Doom 3 on the h/w forum (maybe with a couple of notable exceptions) have actually tried the 2 configurations.

"Hypothetically speaking", the faster RAM would be better if the hard drive accesses are not increased significantly due to its lower capacity. Similarly, the slower RAM might be faster if that extra 1/2 Gig allows the 3xDDR333 to hit the HDD significantly less due to it's capability to store more "stuff" in its RAM than the 2xDDR400. Of course, this really depends on the application - in this case Doom 3 and UT4.

You are in a unique position to actually try this out and tell us about the benchmark . So why don't u just try both of em and see?. That'll give u a better and more reliable view than any estimate given by anyone.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

System 2 will be alot faster and much better peformance

 

[Kangaroo]

I would have thought system 2 would be better, I suppose I could just slot the other stick in if I am playing MMORPG's that require a lot of RAM, like WoW or Horizons.

The graphics card at the moment slows everything down, that will be my next upgrade.

Thanks for your opinions.

 

[Chankama]

Well for "Doom 3 and UT2004", system 2 will probably get my vote. My new system I am building will have 1GB 2xDDR400 also obviously. But, u have the opportunity to check it explicitly in less than 20 minutes .. That's why I pointed out "how" and when the 3xDDR333 might actually be superior.

If whatever application you are running requires a lot of RAM, it will have to hit the HDD. That will slow ur system down quite a lot. Take it from me. I run a lot of signal processing apps on my computer. And I usually reach a threshold where the system bogs down "very noticeably" (and I mean drastically!). I am sure Doom 3 and UT4 is not as intensive as in this respect, but it's still good to be aware of such issues. Having "faster" memory but less of it is not always better.

But, your question has to do with Doom 3 and UT2004 and not Signal processing applications . While system 2 is most likely (99% sure) is the better system for these applcations, you can easily verify if this is true. Takes very little effort. And it'll give you the actual numbers. That's why I said, what I said..