More memory at a slower speed?

[de_day]

Ok, I have the option of running 1GB of 667mhz or 2GB of 333mhz memory in my dual boot Vista/Linux laptop. Which will perform the best?

Is more better or is faster better?

[stroyal]

It depends.
Are you maxing out 1Gig to the point, where the system is using the disk paging file a lot.
In that case it would be faster. Memory is always faster than a hard drive.

If you never go over 1 GIG the faster memory is faster, but probably not noticeable.
Although if you are short on RAM, going to 2 gigs should be noticeable.

You would have to see what your system is using for RAM, then probably try it.

[stroyal]

Is this a dual channel board, and are both kinds of memory in pairs?

[de_day]

It's DDR2 and can be run single. I will do some investigating this week to see if Vista is using all of the memory or not. I know that when I run Linux it's fine, when my wife runs Vista, it's slow. I thought having more than 1 gig would help Vista run better.

[Steve R Jones]

Vista - hands down better with the 2 gigs even if you don't the machine on

[stroyal]

Even though I have never had Vista, I should have known it would use 2 gigs.

(Not to be confused with DDR2)
Most boards are what is called "dual channel", this means the memory installed in pairs will work in parallel, theoretically doubling the memory bandwidth. Running single sticks in this type of board, defeats the advantage of the design.

The newest boards have triple channel.

[de_day]

hmmmmm .. How can you find out whether a board is dual channel?

[de_day]

Oops... never mind. It's says plainly on the spec sheet that it has dual channel support. So if I run a pair of memory sticks, they will run better, faster, stronger than they were before? (sorry, I love the Six Million Dollar man and allusions to the same).

[stroyal]

Yep, If you can run dual sticks, you should.
The real difference is smaller most of the time, that's why I said theoretically doubles your bandwidth, but it is faster.

[de_day]

Ok.. here's the end of the story... A friend had a laptop that he crushed (don't even ask). It was running the same brand and speed memory from the factory that mine was (Hynix PC2 667mhz) He had 2 2GB sticks though to my 1 GB. I did some barter with him and I cut his yard and edged and trimmed the bushes in trade for the memory. It works fine and my machine at least seems faster to me.

I'm going to post another question about my processor. Thanks for all the advice.

[stroyal]

Glad to here it.
If you have Vista 32bit don't get worried, when you see it is not addressing all 4 gigs,
That's normal, 32 bit can only address 4 gig total, so you will only see about 3.5gig, depending on the amount of memory on your video card.

[de_day]

Yes, it shows 3.15gb or something like that... 256MB is used for video

[stroyal]

Perfectly normal, I mention video because it is the biggest other memory.

Windows has to address all the memory on the mother board to operate.
This includes video memory, BIOS ROM, I think there is a video BOIS also.
Any kind of memory has to be addressed, I think even, swap files on the hard disk.

For more system RAM, you need to go to a 64 bit operating system.