System...Abit VA-10 mb w/ AMD Sempron 2400+ (believe board is 333 FSB)..256mb DDR400 ram (dumbed down to 333)....
I have 1gb of 266mhz RAM sitting around and I'm thinking of putting it in the system, since the MB supports it...
System seems to drag w/ the ddr400, since i run a lot of open progs, but I'm wondering what the trade-off in performance will be by installing the slower RAM.....
2006-08-25 04:19:54 · 4 answers · asked by rixtoy 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
Since you have a Sempron, you need the fastest SDRAM and the most amount that your motherboard will possibly support/hold. The Sempron has a reduced L2 cache to the Athlon XP or Athlon 64 and you really need the real SDRAM memory you can get. Less L2 means that the CPU will have to go to SDRAM to get code that is not in the cache, if the code in not in SDRAM then the CPU has to go to even slower virtual memory (hard drive) for the code. More SDRAM means less hard drive access to slow down an already crippled processor.
2006-08-25 04:43:24 · answer #1 · answered by bondoman01 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In terms of speed, you'll probably have about a 50% reduction (give or take.) In terms of real life situations, if a program opens in 2 seconds now but will open in 4 seconds with the 266mhz, can you live with that? By going from 256MB RAM to a full gig you're increasing available RAM by 4x. That alone should offset any loss of speed.
Why not install the 1GB and test it for a few days under real world conditions. If you find it's too slow, reinstall the 256MB and save up for a 1GB DDR 400.
2006-08-25 04:33:25 · answer #2 · answered by Angry C 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you install the 266mhz RAM, it might bring down the CPU FSB as well. I would just buy more RAM...it's super cheap now. Check out TigerDirect.
2006-08-25 04:24:35 · answer #3 · answered by Yoi_55 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would bump up the ram . . . get faster speed ram & lots of it.. Memory is cheap right now (has been for awhile)
2006-08-25 04:22:32 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋