Building new Computer : RAM question?

Question

I've upgraded my old compaq as far as it will go. Its basically an old motherboard and chipset thats been upgraded too far.

So now im forking out for a new case, motherboard and Processor and 1 gig 240pin ram chip

My problem is i have about 1.25 gb of ram (pc 3200 184pin)

and a friend said i could add that to the 1 gb im buy though all of it would run at 184pin after that.

is this true and is it safe?

Answer 1

although you can't run the pc3200 184pin stuff with the newer 240 pin ddr2 stuff, you can buy a "hybrid" board to help curb the upfront cost right now of a full build. Asrock makes a board that support 2 slots of both 184 pin ddr and 240 pin ddr2. In addition, this board supports the LGA 775 socket that new core 2 duo chips use. If that wasn't enough, the board has bot an AGP slot and a PCI-E x16 slot. With all of these features, you can in essence build a new computer piece by piece instead of all at once. This way you won't have to burn through $1500 just to get somehting together to do the job! You can find it at www.newegg.com search Asrock vsta and it will pop up

this board will support the memory you currently have (at least 2 sticks worth)

Answer 2

PC3200 RAM is DDR, not DDR2.

Some motherboards will support both DDR and DDR2, but not at the same time.

Best bet is to look for a mobo that supports both, start off with your current RAM, and then convert later to DDR2.

Here is a nice chaep mobo that supports both and also has an APG slot on it if you have a video card that is AGP. Note that it also support Core 2 Duo processors if you want to upgrae to that down the road.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813185086

Also a combo deal to get the mobo and PentiumD 805 for $99.

Not sure what your budget is.

Answer 3

Absolutely not. The two motherboards you're looking at actually have different slots for RAM itself, in other terms 240pin RAM will not fit in a 184pin RAM slot and vice versa.

Answer 4

The system board you purchase will determine whether the old PC3200 memory will fit in it or not. (Hopefully not because it is old memory).

If you are able to use, and mix it will memory of a different speed, all of the memory will run at the speed of the slowest memory. It is possible to make fast memory run slower, but it is not possible to make slow memory run faster. Since all the memory has to be the same spped, it will slow all the memory to the speed of the slowest stick.