Various Technical questions aboout Ram??

[rohanbee]

I need an answer. Iam currently using a Kingston K 512mb value ram Latency 3-3-3-7. I need answers to these:-

1.) Can a PC-3200 ram run with a PC-2700 ram dimm?
2.) Can different branded rams run on one Pc. Kingston+OCZ (or any other) but same config. i.e(PC-3200)?
3.) Can Ram with same memory space: say 512mb but different timings run together.
4.) What is registered Ram? Why is it so expensive?
5.) Can Ram be over-clocked too?

And if possible PLEASE try to keep this thread to these questions and not about which ram is good and How much it is for (as i believe there are many threads already existing for that)

[amitsaudy]

1) Possible but can cause conflicts and unstability

2)Of course

3)Would definately cause a conflict and cause the system to crash or even make the system unbootable(can be solved to an extent by some changes in jumper and bios settings)

4)?????????????? NO CLUES.

5)YES the memory bandwidth n bus speed can be overclocked to a certain extent.There are diffrent ways depending on your mobo chipset and make. Read your mobo manual for configuring various bios options,jumper settings,voltage dip switches etc.

This is according to knowledge i possess( limited to some extent).
Even i m waiting for others to post and confirm.

[icecoolz]

1) Yes both can be run together. PC 2700 runs at 333mhz and hence both the RAM modules will run at this speed without any issues.

2) You can combine any no of RAM modules of different makes.

3) Yes you can run RAMs with diff CL timings together. Once again it will run at CL timings of the lower end chip.

4) some stuff about registered RAM

Why does registered RAM make a difference? Even if your board can supply enough current to the modules, the address lines and control lines can't. That's why many boards specify the use of Registered DDR when using 4 modules.

Registered RAM modules have a buffer on the address and control lines. They also have a clock driver chip. These chips re-drive the weak input signals to all of the memory cells; something the outputs from the chipset/CPU can't do. This is called fanout.

one more

On Registered DIMM's the address and control signals from your motherboards chipset get intercepted and buffered by two or three register chips on the module. As opposed to unbuffered DIMM's where the address and control signals go directly into every RAM chip on the module. Because the address and control signals only have to go to the register chips on a Registered DIMM, instead of each and every RAM chip on all the memory modules installed in your computer, the load on your motherboard chipset's address and control pins is greatly decreased.

This decrease in load allows the motherboard's chipset to drive the address and control signals quickly enough to remain stable when a large amount of memory is installed. Without these register chips the load on your motherboard's chipset might prevent it from being able to provide enough power to drive the address and control signals quickly enough to keep up with the precise timing requirements that the memory bus needs to transport data reliably.

source: http://www.mushkin.com/mushkin/pop-up/buffering.htm


5) amit said it quite neatly.

[escape7]

My computer distributor says that if we use an amout of ram it should be distributed.
ie : if we use 512 mb then we should have 2 modules of 256 mb..........is that true.

[rohanbee]

I think that argument does not hold water as far as i know the lesser dimm's you have the better.
I use a single dimm for my 512mb of ram infact i want to upgrade to 1 gb and i have suggested to use 1 dimm for 1gb as well unless you get two dimm's which are Dual Channel. Any opinions on this people?!

icecoolz & amitsaudy thanks for your insight on point 2 but there is a friend who kept having a crash by installing 2 different rams. Yes there might have been other issues as you say. But it still makes me wonder!

Registered Ram - Can someone please explain in a simpler language that just went past my head....

I want to ask my friend to get this particular ram from the us. Comments please:-
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820146896