DDR2-675Mhz vs. DDR2-667Mhz

This is the situation:

I bought an ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard and supports DDR2 667/533 RAM and I'm a little confused on a subject involving the RAM speeds.


For now, my two RAM choices are:

Kingston Hyper-X DDR2-675Mhz 2Gig (2x 1Gig Dual Channel Sticks)
Crucial Ballistix DDR2-667Mhz 2Gig (2x 1Gig Dual Channel Sticks)


I'm unsure if the Kingston RAM will work with the motherboard, though there is the capability to overclock on the motherboard. My preferred choice would be the Kingston if it could work but if anyone knows if it won't work then I'll go for the Crucial.


Also, the price for both are roughly the same so there is no question about cost in the end of the problem. I would just like to know if it is possible to put this Kingston RAM into this motherboard or not. I will be purchasing two sets of one of the above choices, meaning I will have a total of 4Gigs.


Any help on this problem would be wonderful, thanks in advance.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Relic

return the board and processor and buy an Athlon 64? ^^;

667MHz and 675MHz memory sticks are both within PC2 5400 specifications, so either stick will work fine. If they both have the same latency specs, they should perform the same, too.

Here is the information on both brands:

Kingston Hyper-X DDR2-675Mhz (PC2-5400) 2Gig (2x 1Gig Dual Channel Sticks)
Latency: 4-4-4-10-1
Voltage: 1.85V
Web Reference: Kingston UK

Crucial Ballistix DDR2-667Mhz (PC2-5300) 2Gig (2x 1Gig Dual Channel Sticks)
Latency: 4-4-4-10
Voltage: 1.9V
Web Reference: Crucial UK

The latencies are the same, but the Kingston has an extra fifth digit that handles the Command Rate.

Originally Posted by Lukage

We're going for 2GB here, I thought? As long as the mobo supports it, it should be fine, no?

The amount of RAM to be purchased will be 4Gigs in total which means two orders will be placed, sorry if what I said was in any way misleading.


Thank you all for your comments, I've enjoyed using Kingston RAM in the past and unless anyone else knows that this type of RAM is not compatible with the P5N32-SLI motherboard, I will place the orders at the beginning of next week.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

After looking over some of the websites a bit more, I found the following information:

Quote:

Quote from Kingston technical notes:

MODULES MUST BE ORDERED AND INSTALLED IN PAIRS for Dual Channel mode. Kingston offers "K2" kit part numbers for Dual Channel mode. This motherboard requires the capacity of Channel A to equal Channel B in order for Dual Channel mode to function properly. Please refer to ASUS motherboard manual for proper installation guidelines. If 4GB is installed, the recognized memory may be reduced to 3.5GB or less (depending on system configuration and memory allocation). * Per ASUS, a 64-bit Operating System is required to achieve 8GB of memory.

Quote:

Quote from ASUSTeK FAQ Support:

If you installed total 4GB memory, the system will detect less than 4GB of total memory because of address space allocation for other critical functions, such as:

- System BIOS (including motherboard, add-on cards, etc..)
- Motherboards resources
- Memory mapped I/O
- configuration for AGP/PCI-Ex/PCI
- Other memory allocations for PCI devices

Different onboard devices and different add-on cards (devices) will result of different total memory size.
e.g. more PCI cards installed will require more memory resources, resulting of less memory free for other uses.

On a SLI system, since PCI-Ex graphic cards will occupy around 256MB, another 256MB will be occupied after you install a 2nd PCI-Ex graphic card. Hence, 2.75GB memory left only if two SLI cards installed on A8N-SLI Premium while 3.0GB memory left with one graphic card without other add-on devices.

This limitation applies to most chipsets & Windows XP 32-bit version operating system.

If you install Windows XP 32-bit version operating system, we recommend that you install less than 3GB of total memory. If more than 3GB memory is required for your system, then below two conditions must be met:
1. The memory controller which supports memory swap functionality is used. The latest chipsets like Intel 975X, 955X, Nvidia NF4 SLI Intel Edition, Nvidia NF4 SLI X16, and AMD K8 CPU architecture can support the memory swap function.
2. Windows XP Pro X64 Ed. (64-bit) or other OS which can address more than 4GB memory.

After reading both thoroughly, I came to the conclusion that if I do purchase enough RAM to make 4Gigs, in theory, about 3Gigs would be left since there will be dual graphics cards present on the motherboard.


4Gig System Memory Support
Web Reference: Intel White Papers (Acrobat Reader Required)

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.