DDR2
Mem
Memory prices in
mid-March 2008.
How much should you pay for quality system
memory right now? HEXUS gives you an indication by doing the
hard work and trawling through responsible e-tailers' websites and
plucking out the best deals.
Put very, very simply, faster memory is always preferable, as it
minimises the delay in getting data and instructions sent over to the
CPU, increasing performance. Capacity, too, is becoming an important
topic with the widespread adoption of Microsoft Vista - now patched up to
SP1 - which thrives on 4GiB.
Please note that HEXUS
does
not receive a kickback from any linked-to memory; we've
added pricing to show what's available, today, and in generally in
stock.
DDR2 - 667MHz (PC5300/5400)
The bread-and-butter memory that's used in a wide range of
budget-to-mid-range systems. Pricing is wonderfully low, so, please, do
your PC(s) a favour and fill those slots!
2GiB kits (2x 1GiB sticks)
- everyone should have at least 2GiB in their systems, at the very
least.
Crucial
PC5300 - CL5 - no heatspreaders -
£28.19
@ Crucial.co.uk
4GiB kits (2x 2GiB sticks)
- perfect for resource-hungry Microsoft Vista, and the minimum that we
would recommend to a 'power-user', given the price of current DDR2.
OCZ Value
Select - 5-5-5-15 latencies - no heatspreaders -
£48.43
at eBuyer.com
DDR2 - 800MHz (PC6400)
DDR2-800
still represents a worthwhile investment for most readers.
It'll run on the vast majority of chipsets and provides 12.8GiB/s of
potential bandwidth to a system when run in dual-channel mode,
constituting two
modules placed in the same-coloured slots on a motherboard.
Lower latencies and larger capacities are better, of course, but such
is the market price for (relatively high-speed) DDR2-800 chips, at a
point where manufacturers
are barely turning a profit, it's almost rude not to buy some right
now.
2GiB kits (2x 1GiB)
-
OCZ
Platinum - 4-4-4-15 latencies - integrated heatspreaders -
£32.99
@ eBuyer.com
4GiB kits (2x 2GiB)
-
Corsair
TwinX XMS2 - 5-5-5-18 latencies - integrated heatspreaders -
£60.50
@ Scan.co.uk
DDR2-1,066MHz (PC8500)
DDR2
generally scales not much further than 1,066MHz, which pushes out
around
17GiB/s in dual-channel mode. Most multi-GPU-capable chipsets now
officially support this speed, including AMD's 790FX and Intel's P35.
The extra bandwidth is of particular benefit when running the host CPU
at higher-than-default speeds. DDR2 of this speed will generally
require above-JEDEC (1.8V) voltages
2GiB kits (2x 1GiB)
Corsair
DOMINATOR - 5-5-5-15 latencies - DOMINATOR heatspreaders -
£47.00
(Komplett)
4GiB kits (2x 2GiB)
Corsair
DOMINATOR - 5-5-5-18 latencies - DOMINATOR heatspreaders -
£91.65
(Scan - pre-order)
We detail the value proposition of DDR3 on the next page.
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