Hardware, info

[danny_geo]

I would like to know a few things.

First, in a RAM, what is DDR, what is the importance of the FSB like, 533, 266 etc. and how can it affect the performance. Is a 512 RAM enough to churn out almost full performance from a P4 2.6 Ghz.

Second, what extra can a graphics card do to performance in terms of 1) Games, 2) Movies (DVD and VCD) and 3) general usage?. What are the different specifications available, and how much would they cost.

I would be extremely thankful to get the answers!!!

[ujjwal]

DDR stands for Double Data Rate RAM. Basically DDR RAM allows you to perform 2 memory accesses per memory bus clock. Hence you can get much higher performance than SDRAM. You need to have a motherboard wich supports DDR, though most newer ones do. DDR RAM comes in FSB variants like 266, 333, 400 etc. This is the speed at which the memory is clocked at, basically the speed at which memory can be accesssed. You will get a fair performance gain with higher speeds, especially if your proccessor has a large FSB. The p4 2.6 comes with an 800 MHz FSB, so get atleast DDR 400 RAM. 512 MB is ideal for now. As for the graphics card, it will make a tremondous impact on games, but other applictaions you have mentioned may not be affected so much. If you are a casual gamer, a geforce4 MX would do, costing 2k - 3k. If you can pay a little more, go for a radeon 9600, it is DirectX9 compliant, and much more future proof than the MX.