Question on DDR Ram? (1 Viewer)

[Brian Price]

I have a PIII processor and 512mb of SDRAM. Does DDR Ram make your system a lot faster? If so do I need anything special to use it or can I just buy some and swap it out with my current ram? If so which is better 512mb of SDRAM or 256 of DDR Ram? Not sure if I can afford 512mb of DDR ram right now. Thanks in advance for help/opinions anyone can provide.

 

[Masood Ali]

DDR RAM does make your system faster. To use it, you need a motherboard that accepts DDR RAM. You can check your motherboard manual or manufacturers website to see if it accepts 184-pin PC1600 or PC2100 DIMMs (your current SDRAM is 168-pin).

It really depends on the programs you run to know if 512MB SDRAM is better than 256MB DDR RAM. Lets say, for example, that you had 512MB of PC133 SDRAM and 256MB of PC2100 DDR RAM (both running at their default clock speeds). If you ran apps like Photoshop, 3D Studio, or did a lot of multitasking, having 512MB of PC133 would be better, because those applications are memory intensive, so having more physical memory means fewer access attempts to the hard drive (which is much slower than any solid-state memory). However, if you were running games, encoding MP3s, or other applications with small file sizes, the DDR RAM would be faster.

In terms of real world performance, the real delta in performance between SDRAM and DDR RAM would depend on the rest of your system (CPU, motherboard, graphics card) as much as the memory type.

However, for everyday apps, like word processing and web surfing, you will notice no difference whatsoever.

FYI, if your motherboard doesn't support DDR RAM, it wouldn't make much sense just upgrading the motherboard for that purpose. When you do feel the need for speed, its best to make a drastic change, meaning upgrade your CPU and motherboard at the same time.

 

[Craig LeBlanc]

I don't think there are any P-III motherboards that will accept DDR ram. You'd have to jump up to a P4 or an Athlon to find boards that use DDR.