Experiment with memory

[efc]

I tried something tonight that had surprising results. My system is antiquated compared to a lot of you.

Duron 850 overclocked to 884MHZ
512 MB pc133 memory Now 768 MB 2 pc133 & 1 pc100
32 MB TNT video card

I had a 256 MB stick of pc100 memory in my parts box. Since I had the room on the MB I decided to install it. After testing all bios setups on the memory I ended up having to reduce the setting from 133 to 100 before everything became stable.

I then went to pcpitstop.com and ran a complete test. To my surprise the rating went up 45 points or 10%. Since I had lowered the bios speed setting, I expected a break even result at best.

[Conan]

The rating probably went up due to the increase in RAM.

[phishhead]

I'm in the same boat efc...got 512 of pc 2700 and 256 of pc2100 and that damn thing will not be stable at 333 fsb...so now I just stuck them all in at 266 and sure enough my 3dmarks went up by 300-400

[Thor]

The memory will only coincide with the lowest installed. Once you get them in harmony then the results will go up. If you leave them at odds with each other then the results Will be poor.

[efc]

If you have extra slower memory laying around, I saw try it and try it at the slower setting. It just might be the cheapest upgrade you ever make.

[cash_site]

It makes sense that the increase in ram capacity makes up for the short fall in FSB setting... Try benchmarks that require quick flushes of RAM compared to large amounts of data that can be filled ??

That would be interesting... Also OS make have an effect. 95/98 would see little effect in adding more memory above 128mb, while 2k/XP just loves having more RAM :D

Thor had good point about setting all ram at same speed, decreases mismatched timings! Best bet would be to swap with other TZ members ;) I have some pc-100 lieing around, wanna swap for pc-133 :P LOL