Performance difference between PC133 SDRAM to DDR

C

Chelica

2[H]4U
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Aug 8, 2003
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2,698
Hello,

I was just wondering. How bad is a 1024MB (2x512MB) PC133 SDRAM running with a 1.6 or a 1.8 P4 at stock speed compared to a 512MB DDR PC2100 running with the same setup at stock speed?

Will there be a huge difference in performance or not? I am talking about minor gaming also. Not really with the hardcore FPS with high framerates, but more like Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2, those kinds of games. Need guidance on this one.

All help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Alex
 
Well if you're motherboard supports DDR ram then by all means go for it, DDR = double data rate = PC133 can be running at 133mhz but DDR wil be doing 266mhz
 
The difference will be as huge as you can expect from a memory upgrade. The SDRAM version of the 845 chipset was a bone that Intel threw to the majors so they could market P4 systems at Celeron prices. Unfortunately, the performance was also Celeron-esque.

(I dug around and found this comparison from THG between the 845 SDRAM and 850 RDRAM chipset. Going to PC2100 DDR won't provide the performance boost of RDRAM800, but it will split the difference.)

The ideal solution would be if you could upgrade this system to a 845PE board that can run DDR333 or 400, if you overclock. That could bring the performance up to par with the Rambus benchmarks in that comparison for under $125.



BHD
 
i have a 845 sdram board and i see no real world difference between p2100 and pc133. i saw the synthetic diffrences in sisoft but i trust real world perfomance more. i also have used willys and northwoods and seen no realworld differences either.
 
PC133 runs at 133MHz while PC2100 is also 133MHz RAM but it performs like 266MHz RAM because it is double data rate while the SDRAM is single. The reason most people dont see much benefit from more bandwidth in most areas of computing is because the extra bandwidth is not always needed. Sisoft will show the biggest performance increase from faster RAM because its all about measureing available bandwidth. This is why i say its pointless to buy PC4000 and faster RAM because only applications can use that huge amount of bandwidth and slower speeds of PC3200 and PC3500 puts out nearly the same amount of performance even in that area. Games require very little bandwidth. When you start going over PC3200 speeds it pretty much goes to waste.

PC133 vs PC2100

http://www.monkeyreview.com/reviews/review.php?num=85&page=2
 
Thank you for all of your help. I think it is basically a toss up. DDR is more of a current standard while PC133 is something in the past. I remember running 1024MB of PC133 on the Northwood and now I am running the 512MB PC2700, the difference is there for sure but not to the great extreme.

Problem solved then, thanks.

Burninggrave- thanks for the link. That was very useful.

Alex
 
This is still about the 2x512 PC133 versus 1x512 PC2100 right?

How about 2x512 PC133 versus 1x512 PC2700? I think that is a greater difference in performance right? Keep in mind that this is 1024 against 512, if that makes any difference.

Alex
 
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