RAM Upgrade..

I'm thinking of Upgrading my RAM for doom 3, i have 256mb of (i THINK) DDR RAM, and want to get another 256, though i have seen many different types for different prices, they all seem to be DDR RAM though, but even chipsets of the same capacity have fluctuating prices from just over £20 to almost £80, i'm wondering if you need to buy the exact same type of RAM for both sets to work together (and if so, how to find out what my exact type is), or if you can have 'different' sets running together (they will both be DDR though), and weather shelling out for a more expensive set will really do me any good..after all if it will be good with an expensive 256, why not buy a cheap 512? heh

To use Dual Channel support you need two DIMMS that are the same. Also make sure you get the right speed. Not all DDR ram is the same speed you know.

Edit: To find out what kind of DDR you have open the case and look at the module, it should have a label on it with the specifications. If you motherboard supports faster ram, ditch that old stick and get two sticks of the fastest stuff you board can support.

for dual cahnnel i belive your system must support it first.
you can mix and match, but it is recomened that you use the same speed. say 2100 speed. you could buy a 2700 speed but it will only work at the slowest speed.
know what your mainboard and CPU can support!
we get people at work always asking. i have a Pentium 1/2 and i want your fastest DDR memmory.
there are many speeds of DDR. 1600,2100,2700,4000 (maybe more, i havnt really fallowed the RAM scene) also types like dual channel

P1/2 can't support DCDDR. What are you using? AMD athlon XP? The XP's take next to no advantage of DC, however the P4's do (I have one.)

Yeah i got an Athalon XP, though the box proclaimed "Future-proof upgrade slot!", and there is space for another ram stick in there. But then i got this thing from Tescos (big supermarket, similar to wal-mart in america i suppose), and it was cheap..its "32 meg" graphics card was crap and could barely run GTA3, ah well, guess i'll have to dig up the screwdriver before i go shopping tomorrow

You went PC shopping in Tescos? You chump... :P

Alientank said:

P1/2 can't support DCDDR. What are you using? AMD athlon XP? The XP's take next to no advantage of DC, however the P4's do (I have one.)

i know DDR doesnt work with p1/2. but much of the general public doesnt.

we get alot of people asking for the 72 simm memmory....ahhh they dont make it any more. go to Medleson's or the computer show.

as for the athlonXP that one complaint i have about them. the DDR controller is on the CPU. why not let the main board handle that? it would at least allow more memmory types i think. maybe not, havnt really looked into the deep details.

Sephiroth said:

as for the athlonXP that one complaint i have about them. the DDR controller is on the CPU. why not let the main board handle that? it would at least allow more memmory types i think. maybe not, havnt really looked into the deep details.

What the hell are you talking about? The Athlon XP has no memory controller on-die. It is handled by the chipset's north bridge.

The Athlon 64 has the memory controller built into the CPU. This serves the main advantage that memory latency is greatly reduced.

As far as supporting more memory types is concerned, the only type that has been predominantly used with the Athlon XP is DDR, and the same is true with the Athlon 64. I suspect only a modest redesign of one section of the chip will be required for the Athlon 64 to support DDR-2 in the future.

I would get a 512MB RAM stick instead if you can go over 512MB RAM on the board.