DDRs...

[BloodyMercy]

I'm entertaining the idea of a new build (first one) but curious as to how much DDR3 will gain for me in PC power. I'm a console gamer so I don't need a super power PC, but I do enjoy HD videos and the like. My wife will most likely continue with her Facebook games so flash capabilities would be needed, but I don't think that is too high of a demand. As I understand it, there is a nominal difference between DDR2 and DDR3. Mainly power consumption and the transfer rate is twice as high, but tech specs aside; is there a big real world difference? Given the price diff. and my low budget am I shooting myself in the foot by going w/ a DDR2 setup?

 

[MindoverMaster]

Well, more advanced system use DDR3 today. It is mainstream now.

As to how much? 4GB is the norm of today. Anything over it for gaming is overkill. I, myself, have 8GB, but I run many virtual machines, so beneficial.

 

[redham]

Don't forget about the new SATA hard drive difference in todays modern builds. The slowest part of most systems is the transfer of data in/out of the hard drives. Today you can get twice the transfer at 6GBps over the old transfer of 3GBps. Also I think it's Intel that has done away with the north bridge directly going from cpu to memory. I don't have time to research it but there are several major improvements including USB 3.0 which transfers at 10 times faster rate of USB 2,0.

There is a lot to consider. We haven't even talked about SSD instead of hard drives but you can use those now without upgrading our system.

redham

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

North Bridge still exists, it just doesn't house the memory controller, and both AMD and Intel systems now use a single North Bridge that controls basically everything but memory, unless the board has a built in GPU, then it uses 2 chipsets.