New RAM for an old computer

[anerfoc]

Hi again everybody.

Long story short, I recently installed a 2006-era video card into a 2004-era PC which I'm giving to somebody this Christmas, and I loaded some 2006-ish games to test it out. It definitely performs better with games like Oblivion and Anno 1701, which were near-unplayable with the previous video card. But it struggles with lots of anti-aliasing and frame rates gets a little choppy when there's lots of detail on screen.

Now I'm wondering if, for the person who will get the comp, it's a good idea to upgrade the RAM a bit, since RAM is cheap these days. As I recall, a video card needs lots of RAM to see its full potential. What I want to know is, is this one of these cases? And what RAM would be good to get for this old comp? Specs follow.

Old components:

CPU: Athlon XP 2800+ (1.25 GHz; roughly equal to an Intel 2.8 GHz, I think)
Mobo: ASUS A7V8X-X
RAM: 2x512 MB Kingston PC3200 (200 MHz) DDR SDRAM (I'm assuming DDR1)

New components:

PSU: Corsair 650W
GPU: eVGA GeForce 7800 GS (256 MB) (previously GeForce 6600 GT)
HD: WDC Black 1TB

I know it isn't really worth it to upgrade this old computer, but I got the video card free and I had to get the hard drive, so I'm just wondering if a little more will soup things up a bit for pre-, maybe up to-2007 gaming. And, if so, what RAM should I buy? Here's a test I did with the Crucial memory scanner app, which makes this my current choice for the third memory slot on the mobo, to add on to my existing Kingston sticks for total of 2GB, which I'm hoping will give a noticeable improvement. On the other hand, maybe I should go for cheaper memory, Corsair or G.Skill or something, and get a full new 3GB, chucking the Kingston sticks out.

One other thing: the Crucial memory test says this about my system: "When using DDR400 (PC3200) the system supports a maximum of 2 banks of memory ... A single DIMM will either have 1 or 2 banks of memory." Does this mean I literally can't get a third RAM stick, because the Kingston sticks take up all the banks? Even though there's still one slot free?

A little help here and I can finally finish up this old comp once and for all.

 

[paco16]

You can put in a third stick, but you'll lose Dual-channel. Your ram will run @ it' s rated speed cut in half. (so 200mhz instead of 400mhz). While the extra ram is nice, it doesn't come close to the performance gains you get when dual channel is enabled.
If I were you, I'd but some 1 or 2(if you can find them) gig sticks and replace the old 2x512mb sticks. You can get DDR1(400mhz) cheap in some places. Although, not cheaper than DDR2.
It is true that having 1gb or ram will bottleneck the video card. But the processor is going to do that before the memory does. I've had both the motherboard and had quite a few Athlon XP chips. Upgrading the CPU is really the only viable way to bump the performance up on this machine. Even then, you won't be able to necessarily turn on AA and shader detail with games from that era. Oblivion in particular.
Good luck!

P.S. Check the For Sale forums here to see if anyone has some cheap 3 gen's ago hardware if you're determined to put money into this box.

 

[BinarySynapse]

You can put in a third stick, but you'll lose Dual-channel. Your ram will run @ it' s rated speed cut in half. (so 200mhz instead of 400mhz).

uh, no. He'll lose dual channel, but the DDR speed remains the same. All PC3200 runs at 200MHz (400Mhz effective) regardless of single or dual channel

While the extra ram is nice, it doesn't come close to the performance gains you get when dual channel is enabled.

Not necessarily. If he's running out of memory, the performance gains from adding more ram and dropping to single channel will far out weight staying in dual-channel and hitting the page file all the time.

<snip>.

 

[vkfu]

The motherboard doesn't even support dual channel. So it doesn't matter if you add matching sticks of RAM or not.

 

[BinarySynapse]

The motherboard doesn't even support dual channel. So it doesn't matter if you add matching sticks of RAM or not.

good catch.


As for the single-bank, double-bank DIMMS, I think it just means that if you install two 2-banked dimms or three single banked dimms, the motherboard will drop the memory speed down to 166Mhz (DDR333). However, if your CPU is a 333FSB part, then it'll actually be better that way since Athlon XP's run smoother with match RAM and FSB clocks.

 

[anerfoc]

One other thing: the Crucial memory test says this about my system: "When using DDR400 (PC3200) the system supports a maximum of 2 banks of memory ... A single DIMM will either have 1 or 2 banks of memory." Does this mean I literally can't get a third RAM stick, because the Kingston sticks take up all the banks? Even though there's still one slot free?

So this isn't a concern?

if your CPU is a 333FSB part, then it'll actually be better that way since Athlon XP's run smoother with match RAM and FSB clocks.

I'm not sure how to tell this. I'm using EVEREST for system info, and under Motherboard->Motherboard->Memory Bus it lists the Real Clock at 167 MHz (DDR) and the Effective Clock at 333 MHz. But under Computer->Overclock->CPU Speed, CPU FSB is 99.99 MHz and Memory Bus is dynamic, hovering around 166.65 MHz. I'm not sure which stat is relevant.

It is true that having 1gb or ram will bottleneck the video card. But the processor is going to do that before the memory does. I've had both the motherboard and had quite a few Athlon XP chips. Upgrading the CPU is really the only viable way to bump the performance up on this machine. Even then, you won't be able to necessarily turn on AA and shader detail with games from that era. Oblivion in particular.

So is a RAM upgrade really going to be worth it at all? If I can find a couple 1GB sticks for $20 each, it'd probably be worth it, but more than that, I dunno. Would 3GB total be much better than 2GB, or would the CPU bottleneck things before I get to 3GB?

Check the For Sale forums here to see if anyone has some cheap 3 gen's ago hardware if you're determined to put money into this box.

If I could pick up an upgraded CPU for 30-40 bucks, I would. But they're hard to come by, and it's hard to tell if they'll be compatible with everything...

 

[BinarySynapse]

So this isn't a concern?

It depends on how the board acts. Some boards downclock the ram, other just freak out and do nothing. From what I'm reading about your board, DDR400 is limited to 2-banks (anything over like 256MB has 2-banks) and DDR333 is limited to 4-banks (or two sticks).

I'm not sure how to tell this. I'm using EVEREST for system info, and under Motherboard->Motherboard->Memory Bus it lists the Real Clock at 167 MHz (DDR) and the Effective Clock at 333 MHz. But under Computer->Overclock->CPU Speed, CPU FSB is 99.99 MHz and Memory Bus is dynamic, hovering around 166.65 MHz. I'm not sure which stat is relevant.

Your memory is running at DDR333 (166 actual) speed. and the CPU is running at 200FSB (100MHz actual).

So is a RAM upgrade really going to be worth it at all? If I can find a couple 1GB sticks for $20 each, it'd probably be worth it, but more than that, I dunno. Would 3GB total be much better than 2GB, or would the CPU bottleneck things before I get to 3GB?

It depends on your RAM usage. But in your case, I doubt 3GB is going to be beneficial over 2GB just because of the age of the CPU.

If I could pick up an upgraded CPU for 30-40 bucks, I would. But they're hard to come by, and it's hard to tell if they'll be compatible with everything...

Might consider just tossing some older dual-core LGA775 parts in there and go from there.


EDIT: Now that I've look again, your CPU is running about half it's normal speed. Should be either 2.083GHz or 2.13GHz. Your FSB should be at 133 (266 effective) or 166(333 effective, not possible on your board). Since it's running at 1.25GHz (per your post), you've got a 333FSB chip in a board that can only do 200FSB or 266FSB. and it's defaulting to 200 since it doesn't understand what CPU you have.

 

[paco16]

uh, no. He'll lose dual channel, but the DDR speed remains the same. All PC3200 runs at 200MHz (400Mhz effective) regardless of single or dual channel
Not necessarily. If he's running out of memory, the performance gains from adding more ram and dropping to single channel will far out weight staying in dual-channel and hitting the page file all the time.

On the first sentence: I basically said the same thing, except worded badly.
Second: I disagree, check the benchmarks when 'gaming' which is what this pc is supposed to be for. Dual channel almost always out-performs a little bit more memory. Especially when it's a 32 bit OS.

Third- this is all a moot point as this mobo doesn't have dual channel. So fill the 3rd bank, you won't see a negative hit with this board.

 

[BinarySynapse]

On the first sentence: I basically said the same thing, except worded badly.
Second: I disagree, check the benchmarks when 'gaming' which is what this pc is supposed to be for. Dual channel almost always out-performs a little bit more memory. Especially when it's a 32 bit OS.

Third- this is all a moot point as this mobo doesn't have dual channel. So fill the 3rd bank, you won't see a negative hit with this board.

On the first part, you didn't say the same thing. You said his RAM's speed would be drop in half (200MHz instead of 400Mhz). This is outright incorrect. He may go from 128-bit accesses to 64-bit, but that's not the same just cutting the speed in half.


On the second point, I said that if he were running out of RAM and was being forced to hit the hard drive page-file, then it would be better to add another stick of RAM and go single channel than it would to stick with dual-channel.

 

[paco16]

On the first part, you didn't say the same thing. You said his RAM's speed would be drop in half (200MHz instead of 400Mhz). This is outright incorrect. He may go from 128-bit accesses to 64-bit, but that's not the same just cutting the speed in half.


On the second point, I said that if he were running out of RAM and was being forced to hit the hard drive page-file, then it would be better to add another stick of RAM and go single channel than it would to stick with dual-channel.

You're right, saying the words "cut in half" was bad.
Second point is correct to an extent. If you've hit the ceiling on the paging file, you'll want to add extra ram at least. If he's using XP the paging file is 1.5 times the size of the amount of ram in the system. Adding more ram will increase the paging file ceiling and hopefully prevent the paging file from being maxed out or close to it in the future.
I'll say it again however; sacrificing dual-channel with any chipset from the early Athlon XP days for more paging file headroom does not, has not and will not ever increase gaming performance. There are other ways to speed up the performance of the machine... going dual channel to single channel is not one of them. That's all I'm saying.

 

[BinarySynapse]

You're right, saying the words "cut in half" was bad.
Second point is correct to an extent. If you've hit the ceiling on the paging file, you'll want to add extra ram at least. If he's using XP the paging file is 1.5 times the size of the amount of ram in the system. Adding more ram will increase the paging file ceiling and hopefully prevent the paging file from being maxed out or close to it in the future.
I'll say it again however; sacrificing dual-channel with any chipset from the early Athlon XP days for more paging file headroom does not, has not and will not ever increase gaming performance. There are other ways to speed up the performance of the machine... going dual channel to single channel is not one of them. That's all I'm saying.

early Athlon XP chipset were not dual channel. It wasn't until very late in the platforms' lifetime that dual channel popped up (NF2, if I remember right).


And the size of the paging file is not what my post was concerned with. It was the amount of physical RAM. If a system is running out of physical RAM to store program data or code, then the OS is going to start swapping the oldest data sets to the drive. That's going to slow things down significantly more than adding more RAM and going to single channel.

Of course, replacing all the RAM with larger modules would be optimal, but sometimes that's just not worth it on older systems.

 

[anerfoc]

ryan_975: Very good call on the CPU Speed. I think it was set to 1250 (or possibly 1667), don't know how that happened. I changed it up to 2083 in the BIOS. (Question 4 is about that.) Already things are playing quite a bit smoother, so thanks very much for noticing that.


I have a few last questions though:

1. None of this dual channel stuff matters for me anyway because my mobo doesn't support it, right?

From what I'm reading about your board, DDR400 is limited to 2-banks (anything over like 256MB has 2-banks) and DDR333 is limited to 4-banks (or two sticks).

2. I'm confused.. my plan right now is to grab a 1GB stick, put it in the empty slot alongside the two 512 MB Kingstons, and that'll be it. EVEREST says the Kingstons are DDR400. Since the Kingstons therefore sum to 4-banks and the mobo only allows 2-banks for DDR400, they run at a downgraded DDR333, that I understand. But does that mean that with a new gig of DDR400 in there the speed will drop even lower, to DDR266 or something? Very confusing. Is it even worth it to get the extra memory if it's going to be running so slowly?

3. Actually, since the Kingstons are already running at DDR333 instead of their proper DDR400, maybe I should buy a new DDR333 stick instead of DDR400 (since I wouldn't be able to use it properly anyway)? Should be cheaper.

Now that I've look again, your CPU is running about half it's normal speed. Should be either 2.083GHz or 2.13GHz. Your FSB should be at 133 (266 effective) or 166(333 effective, not possible on your board). Since it's running at 1.25GHz (per your post), you've got a 333FSB chip in a board that can only do 200FSB or 266FSB. and it's defaulting to 200 since it doesn't understand what CPU you have.

4. As I said above, I think my CPU Speed was set to 1250. While changing it to 2083, the BIOS warned me (only when setting to 2083 or higher) that "Caution: According to CPU external frequency setting, system memory can only operate at frequency higher than or equal to 333Mhz, please make sure the DRAM maximum frequency is not less than 333 MHz." The CPU External Frequency at 2083 is 166/33. Since my memory is going at 333MHz right now, I went ahead and set it it to 2083, with no ill effects so far. EVEREST now reports that my CPU Clock is dynamic, a little under 2083, and that my CPU FSB and Memory Bus are also dynamic, and identical, both around 166. A little weird since in the quote above you say that's not possible on my board, or maybe I misunderstood you. Maybe I should change the CPU speed down to 1667, which I think will result in a 133 FSB. Or is the 2083 with 166 FSB safe?

Sorry for bothering you with all of this. My head is spinning trying to sort all this stuff out.