PC2700 vs PC3200

My Dimension 2400 came stock with one 256MB DDR PC2700 stick. I have recently ordered a 1024MB PC3200 stick.



Should I run them simultaneously (1280MB PC2700) or shold I run the 1024MB on it's own (PC3200)? Which configuration would give me the best performance?

i would say take out the 256



i added a gig of pc 2700 to my old system that had a gig of 3200 and my 3dmark score went down like 50 points

I agree with Sloth. If you keep both sticks in, they'll both run at the speed of the stick of PC2700, which you only have 256MB of... you'll waste the speed of the GB stick.

BUT... if you motherboard doesn't support the 3200's speed, you may just keep them both in.

This is exactly what I was looking for, what a coincidence.



How do you know what speed your motherboard accepts? My computer is an Athlon 64 3200+ with 512mb PC2700 (before upgrading) if that's any help.

any ideas on the brand of the mobo, or computer??....series or model number would help

if its amd 64 3200+ then its definetly gonna accept PC3200, so just stick in the gig and take out the old pc2700 ram.

Check the website of the motherboard manufacturer and find the specs for your motherboard... or check the box or manuals that came with the system or board.

Penguinlord, try CPU-Z.



http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php



Thanks for everyone's help. My ram came in the mail yesterday, except that there was a 512 stick in the package instead! There was no protective seal or anything whatsoever, so it was obviously tampered with. I phoned TigerDirect this morning, the best they could do was to give me a reduced price (the price went down since I purchased it) and free shipping. It's extremely annoying, after a week of anticipation, having to ship it back and waiting even longer.

This is on the topic...



If the situation was the same as the first post in this topic, but you had 512mb already installed instead of 256mb, would it be better to have the 1gb on it's own or just add the 1gb stick?

As IS_Contractor had explained, ram runs at the same speed of the slowest module in the board (if for example you have one PC2700 and one PC3200, both will run at PC2700). Personally I would run both simultaneously (because 1.5GB is significantly more than 1GB), but the best thing that you can do is experiment with both configurations. Others can give you reccomendations based on their own opinions but it wouldn't hurt to try it on your own. If your board supports only PC2700, you might as well keep both.



Unfortunately I just found out that my board can only run ram up to 200mhz instead of PC3200 (400mhz). If you are in the same situation, then there's no point in running the 1GB on it's own.



I used AIDA32 to find out info on my PC.



http://files4.majorgeeks.com/files/6...da32pe_393.zip