Quick Ram Question

[Dissolution]

So I'm still planning on what parts to get to put my new desktop together.

The general consensus on my previous thread about buying the 8800GTS was that my CPU was bottlenecking the system... And changing my CPU meant pretty much putting most of a new PC together.

I was thinking of running Vista on my new desktop, and I was wondering this today: Would 2GB of Corsair XMS2 RAM or 4gb of Kingston RAM be better? I mainly use this PC for games, if that's crucial information.

A brief of the parts I have planned so far are:

CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Case

Intel Q6600 CPU

ASUS P5B mobo

Generic 500w PSU, since I can't seem to find a CoolerMaster one.

I'll be putting these together with my current:

ASUS EN8800GTS 640mb

DVD-RW

200GB HDD

Anyone has any suggestions? Any comment/critique is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[nikster]

So I'm still planning on what parts to get to put my new desktop together.

The general consensus on my previous thread about buying the 8800GTS was that my CPU was bottlenecking the system... And changing my CPU meant pretty much putting most of a new PC together.

I was thinking of running Vista on my new desktop, and I was wondering this today: Would 2GB of Corsair XMS2 RAM or 4gb of Kingston RAM be better? I mainly use this PC for games, if that's crucial information.

Anyone has any suggestions? Any comment/critique is greatly appreciated.

Definitely: More RAM is better. On Vista, 4GB vs 2 makes a difference. So go for the 4GB.

While you will see the tiniest of speed differences between two different makes of RAM, you will see significant differences between 2GB and 4GB.

Edit - PS: As others have said, don't skimp on the PSU. Get a quality one.

Edited October 16, 2007 by nikster

[Dissolution]

I can't seem to find any 'reknown' PSUs at Fortunetown so far... Or maybe I just haven't heard of them. Any suggestions?

And the extra 2GB of RAM will be preferable to the speed increase on the XMS2s? Also, is there a huge different between 667 and 800 RAM? i.e. Should I pick up a bunch of 800s, or is it more cost-efficient to pick up a couple 667s instead?

[TopDogger]

I can't seem to find any 'reknown' PSUs at Fortunetown so far... Or maybe I just haven't heard of them. Any suggestions?

Goto PanTit, loads of places have them

[Firefoxx]

Fortune has Enermax and Asus PSUs for sale, at HWH and the corner shop between the bathrooms and the outside escalator. You don't need to go to Pantip.

Thing is, you can try 2GB now, and then get another 2GB later if you think it's a bottleneck. There's no need to populate all 4 slots now.

800 vs 667, 800 gives you more headroom for overclocking. Core 2's are VERY easy to overclock, and the lower spec'd ones (like the E4's) can be easily overclocked so that they beat flagship CPUs. Get 800's if the price difference isn't high... if they cost twice as much then forget it.

Why not get the P5k? It's a newer chipset, and the price is about the same.

[nikster]

The way I understood the question was what's better 2GB of expensive RAM or 4GB of cheap RAM. To which I'd say 4GB every time...

[quiksilva]

Yes when it comes to RAM more is better.

[Guest Reimar]

You should although try to get memories with the lowest CL (CL 4 is better and faster tahen CL 5, CL 3 better than CL 4 and so on)!

I had explained in simple words the meaning of CL, search the forum for it!

[Dissolution]

Thanks guys.

I actually went to Pantip yesterday, and for the first time, actually seriously looked around. It seems either there are some pricing controls in effect, or all the hardware shops are owned by only 3 main companies? There were only 3 variants of pricelists; i.e. there would be the same pricelist at various different shops.

Best CoolerMaster PSU I found was at the auth. dealer on lv.5, and he only had 360w.

All-in-all a wasted trip, since I stay pretty much opposite Fortune Town.

Regarding the RAM, seems there are pros for both sides; 2GB of the expensive faster RAM first (they're CL4s)... or 4GB of the cheaper slower RAM. They're approximately the same price, so 4GB of the expensive RAM could actually get me 8GB or more of the cheap RAM.

I've got to look into the ASUS P5K series... any recommendations? Planning the go down to Fortune tomorrow to round up the parts. Also, does anyone know where I can find Cooler Master cases at Fortune? Would be a bitch to go down to Pantip again just to pick up a case.

Thanks.

p.s. What corner shop and which 'outside escalator'?

[onethailand]

p.s. What corner shop and which 'outside escalator'?

HWH is Hardware House - it is located directly across from the second-hand computer shop named Jinan on the 3rd floor where the promotion/exhibition area is..

There is only one outside escalator on the 3rd floor, which is next to an inside escalator. There are four corner shops - one is Dinosaur, one is Sony, the other two are the ones that you should check. I cannot for the life of me remember their names at the moment but both of those shops are also large component distributors. HWH is also a large distributor, though mostly for Creative Technologies. All three have been around for ages.

As for the RAM - I'd take the Corsair because those are definitely primo RAM modules - but given the choice of 2GB Corsair and 4GB Kingston on Vista, I'd definitely take the 4GB unless, as Firefoxx recommended, you can get by on 2GB first and add 2GB later if you desire.

Edited October 17, 2007 by onethailand

[Dissolution]

HWH sadly doesn't carry CoolerMaster nor Corsair/OCZ products... The cater mostly towards notebooks/laptops, unfortunately.

Found 2 shops with nearly everything... but I can't seem to find a 2GB stick of Corsair/OCZ RAM. It apparently comes with 1GB/stick maximum? Guess I'll either have to deal with just 2GB of RAM, or somehow find a mobo that has 4 RAM slots...?

[onethailand]

HWH sadly doesn't carry CoolerMaster nor Corsair/OCZ products... The cater mostly towards notebooks/laptops, unfortunately.

Found 2 shops with nearly everything... but I can't seem to find a 2GB stick of Corsair/OCZ RAM. It apparently comes with 1GB/stick maximum? Guess I'll either have to deal with just 2GB of RAM, or somehow find a mobo that has 4 RAM slots...?

You went to the HWH Notebook shop HWH is next to it right on the corner.

[Dissolution]

Dang, gotta head down again today. Are you referring to the tiny counter for PCs they have in the corner?

Finally found the case, can't find a 2GB stick of Corsair/OCZ, found only B3 Q6600s... *sigh*

And still can't decide on mobo. Currently looking at a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R to overclock the CPU.

PSUs look inhibitively expensive, will probably have to shell out a bit more to get a 500w Enermax or 550w ASUS model.

[onethailand]

Dang, gotta head down again today. Are you referring to the tiny counter for PCs they have in the corner?

Finally found the case, can't find a 2GB stick of Corsair/OCZ, found only B3 Q6600s... *sigh*

And still can't decide on mobo. Currently looking at a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R to overclock the CPU.

PSUs look inhibitively expensive, will probably have to shell out a bit more to get a 500w Enermax or 550w ASUS model.

It's not's really that tiny... LOL... it takes up a reasonable amount of space down the corridor as well. If you look in the counters themselves you will often find various equipment you can't find anywhere else (in my case, certain Zyxel routers). I'm not certain you will find Corsair RAM there though - another place you might be able to try is on the fourth floor, again near the outside escalator - there's a shop which displays mainboards in their window, they also have unusual parts. Called PC-CPU or something, haven't been there in a while.

Don't know much about mainboards these days as I have been out of the business for quite some time. Asus was excellent but unpredictable in those days, Gigabyte a bit more predictable but not as conducive to overclocking. They were the first to come out with Dual BIOS though. My choice for overclocking was Abit but again we're talking some time ago.

[Dissolution]

Heh, I guess you're right. In the grand scale of things around here, most shops are just a booth as well. The unfortunately don't stock Corsair RAM, however. Is the place on the fourth floor w/ the mobo shopfront Jinan?

As for the Gigabyte mobo I mentioned earlier, it apparently did pretty well in a Tom's Hardware overclocking test. Will fish up the link later. I think that mobo also allows for using either DDR2 or 3, should I need to upgrade again inthe near future.

[onethailand]

Heh, I guess you're right. In the grand scale of things around here, most shops are just a booth as well. The unfortunately don't stock Corsair RAM, however. Is the place on the fourth floor w/ the mobo shopfront Jinan?

As for the Gigabyte mobo I mentioned earlier, it apparently did pretty well in a Tom's Hardware overclocking test. Will fish up the link later. I think that mobo also allows for using either DDR2 or 3, should I need to upgrade again inthe near future.

Yeah, that's the shop. Corsair unfortunately is not common here. I think there's an overclocking shop near an escalator on the 3rd or 4th floor, or maybe it's moved into another area - that would be your best hope if none of the other shops stock Corsair.

If you're on Tom's, you'll be all right My time coincided with the very early years of Tom's.