RAM Help...

[AgentWD40]

Here is my current setup:

ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe
Pentium D 805
Nvidia Geforce 7900GS

I purchased a set of Kingston Hyper-X DDR2 675 RAM modules (1 Gig) from newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820144177) for 138.99+S/H. These have a CAS timing of 4-4-4-10 at DDR2 675,

Newegg has a sale on Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667 for 114.99 with free shipping (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146568). These have a CAS timing of 3-3-3-12 at DDR2 667.

Should I RMA the Kingston for the Crucial? I would like to save the 35 dollars, but would it be a good choice performance wise?

 

[engiNURD]

Newegg will charge you a 15% restocking fee for returning the non-defective RAM. $140*0.15=$21... $35 - $21 = $4 savings for slower ram? Not sure that's a good idea. Performance-wise, the 675 sticks can reach 337.5Mhz, guaranteed, while the 667 sticks only guarantee 333Mhz. Is that guaranteed extra 4.5Mhz worth the $35 you paid for it? No. Should you return it and get the cheaper ram? No. Are you stuck with bad ram? No... well, maybe... you'll have to test it out, lol.

 

[AgentWD40]

I just read about the restocking fee, so its really not worth the hassle.

Although I am still curious to which one your would choose. I read somewhere that lower latency RAM is sometimes better than faster speeds. That is basically my question. If I hadn't had already purchased the RAM would you have recommended the DDR2 675 (4-4-4-10) or the DDR2 667 (3-3-3-12)?

 

[engiNURD]

its only 4.5Mhz faster... there's basically no performance gain with 4.5mhz. When comparing DDR2-800 vs DDR2-667, THEN you'll notice a difference. I would have recommended the DDR2-667 over the 675, and the 800 over the 667 if you planned on OC'ing.