8gb DDR2 or 4gb DDR3?

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Replicant1911

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Hi all, been awhile since I bought components. So I got one of those Gigabyte motherboards that supports either 8gb of DDR2 or 4gb of DDR3. I currently have 4gbDDR2 and want to upgrade. I do not want to purchase a new motherboard at this time. So which would give me more frames per second perfomance, 8gigs of DDR2 or 4gigs of DDR3?
 
8GB of DDR2 is considerably more pricey than even 8GB of DDR3. If you were going to keep what you have even 4GB of DDR2 is probably more than 8GB of DDR3.
 
4GB DDR2 should be $35-40 used for 2 sticks.
8GB DDR3 is about the same price for 2 sticks.

Can your mobo use 2 4GB DDR3 sticks? What mobo do you have?
 
Thanks, my motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R rev 1.1

The manual says it supports 4gigs of DDR3 at 1333 (2 slots) or 8 gigs of DDR2 1066 (4 slots). Take price out of the factor. Which is better for performance. 8gigs of slower ram or 4 gigs of faster ram?
 
What are you doing with your computer? If your needs actually require more than 4GB of RAM, then get the 8GB.
 
Ok if that is a limitation of the board I would go with the 8GB of DDR2. The speed difference between DDR2 and DDR3 on the same board is not likely to be noticeable.
 
If you can borrow a pair of sticks from somewhere I would be very tempted to try 8GB of DDR3 and see what happens.
 
mmm 8GB dersktop sticks have come down a lot in the last month or so to the point where they are only barely more expensive than 8GB server sticks. Still a lot more expensive per gigabyte than 4GB desktop sticks though.
 
plugwash said:
mmm 8GB dersktop sticks have come down a lot in the last month or so to the point where they are only barely more expensive than 8GB server sticks. Still a lot more expensive per gigabyte than 4GB desktop sticks though.
Click to expand...

Yep...Running a rig @ 2 * 8GB for $250 is palatable where at $400 I went BLEH.
 
Taking price out of the picture I would go with 8gb of DDR2/1066 @ cl4 over 4gb DDR3 @ cl9. Especially if you are disabling the page file as I do.

Good luck! B)
 
Keep in mind that a lot of those "C" type boards that support DDR2 and DDR3 were very problematic with DDR3 in general. I'd avoid DDR3 in that board if it was my system.
 
I tried Robstar's suggestion. I went to Fry's and bought 2x4gb of DDR 1333 by Patriot for $45. I figured I could always return it if it didnt work out. Well i put them both in the DDR3 slots and the BIOS booted up but it kept hanging on the "Windows is starting up screen." So I took one stick out and it booted up fine. I updated the BIOS and chipset drivers and tried again and now I'm rocking 8 gigs of DDR3 on my old Gigabyte board!

Boom.
8gigsDDR3installed.png
 
Replicant I am thinking to try the same thing putting in 2x4 Gb modules in my old P35C-DS3R rev.1.x.

What Bios did you have to update to?

I have F12 but I have seen unofficial newer releases up to F13d, did you go for that one or stick with the official?
 
Replicant1911 said:
Hi all, been awhile since I bought components. So I got one of those Gigabyte motherboards that supports either 8gb of DDR2 or 4gb of DDR3. I currently have 4gbDDR2 and want to upgrade. I do not want to purchase a new motherboard at this time. So which would give me more frames per second perfomance, 8gigs of DDR2 or 4gigs of DDR3?
Click to expand...

You should go with 4 GB DDR3. You may not be able to utilize full 8GB DDR2 RAM but certainly a faster 4 GB RAM would help.
 
Ztimpy[Swe];1038024656 said:
Replicant I am thinking to try the same thing putting in 2x4 Gb modules in my old P35C-DS3R rev.1.x.

What Bios did you have to update to?

I have F12 but I have seen unofficial newer releases up to F13d, did you go for that one or stick with the official?
Click to expand...

I have the exact same board as you. Same revision number too. I went with the F12 BIOS. Used the little online utility to do it. Easy peasy.
 
Thanks man, but dang it, I chickened out the day before you posted and got the 2x2Gb sticks...regretting that now ::)
 
Ztimpy[Swe];1038065179 said:
Thanks man, but dang it, I chickened out the day before you posted and got the 2x2Gb sticks...regretting that now ::)
Click to expand...

Ah sorry guy. I am terrible at checking back on my forum threads.
 
Does anyone know whether the 2x4GB DDR3 would work on the EP35-DS3L? I certainly don't see any indication on Gigabyte's website that this is the case.

EDIT: Nevermind, found my answer... didn't realize the OP's board had separate slots for DDR3. Looks like I'm blocked at 4GB unless I want to spend $400 on a CPU+mobo upgrade I don't really need. Same shit happened with my previous build... outgrew the memory way faster than the rest of the system, but was stuck with DDR slots and only DDR2 memory available at mortal prices. :(
 
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I just put in 8Gb, (2x4Gb sticks)
Corsair XMS3 Vengeance 8GB DDR3 PC3-15000 1866MHz (CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9) (2x4GB)

These work great with my GA-P35C-DS3R (rev. 1.x).

Three days running, if they fail i'll update.

Suck on that gigabyte support, said that it wouldn't work...

*Update, still works 2012 march no problems what so ever.
 
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I have the same problem with this motherboard. Can someone please help me making it possible to use 8 gb ddr3
 
AnandTech says importance (highest to lowest) of memory is as follows:

  1. Capacity
  2. Channel configuration
  3. MHz of memory
  4. Timings

"A system will be slow due to lack of memory before the speed of the memory is an issue".

So to answer your question, 8GB of DDR2 would be superior to 4GB of DDR3.
 
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