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Why should you get two Gigabytes of memory?
Let me grab an old example .. Windows 98, who didn't use that OS? What amount of memory did your PC have? Right, likely 128 MB. Over the years we progressed and noticed that applications have gotten more and more memory intensive. With Windows XP we moved towards 512 MB as standard to prevent the OS from swapping to the HD, and as explained on the previous page with the latest games we see that the certain games really like 1 GB already. All this has happened over just a couple of years my friends. The upcoming Microsoft Vista, for example, should be a memory hog where 1 GB might just be the minimum recommended specification.
The Corsair memory we'll be testing today is two bars of 1 GB (in dual channel mode you gain the best memory bandwidth). The modules are tagged as CMX1024-3500LLPRO and have some pretty courageous 2-3-2-6 timings. You'll notice the "3500" in the name .. divide that number by eight and you'll notice that this memory is rated at 437.5 MHz at these specific timings. For two GB of memory these are really tight timings.
What we should also mention is that the tested 2 GB kit comes with the flashy activity LEDs and black (pirate color of course) heatspreaders. We really didn't check what kind of memory was under the hood though as I'm certain I would damage the 18 active LEDS somehow but we're confident that we'd see Infineon IC's under the hood. We'll show you some photo's of these funky Christmas lights in our photo shoot.
Why is memory so important ?
Why is memory so important? You know ... I can't remember; waah what a lame joke :: wipes a tear of joy from his eye ::
To understand this we'll start off with the ordinary A-B-C of memory.
Random Access Memory, or volatile memory, is used by the system to store data for processing by a computer's central processing unit (CPU), also known as the processor. RAM stores the data in memory cells that are arranged in grids much like the cells are arranged in a spreadsheet, from which data, in the binary form of 1's and 0's, can be accessed and transferred at random to the processor for processing by the system's software. The faster that process goes up-to a certain threshold, the better your performance can be. When the computer is turned off, all of the data in the RAM memory is lost, hence its alternative name of volatile memoryUp to a point, adding RAM (random access memory) will normally cause your computer to feel faster on certain types of operations. Some applications (think Photoshop or most movie editing and animation packages) need bags of RAM to do their job. If you run them on a PC with too little RAM, they swap constantly and run very slowly. You can get a massive speed boost by adding enough RAM to eradicate the swapping. Programs like these seriously can run 10 to 50 times faster once they have enough RAM. This is no joke.
How does RAM work ? Well, the essence is actually very simple. To store a 1 in the memory cell, a capacitor is filled with electrons. To store a 0, it is emptied .. that's it .. it's that simple. The dilemma with the capacitor's container is that it has a leak. In a matter of a few milliseconds a full bucket becomes empty. Therefore, for memory to work, either the CPU or the memory controller has to come along and recharge all of the capacitors holding a 1 before they discharge. To do this, the memory controller will read the memory and then writes it right back. This refresh operation happens automatically thousands of times per second.
When you recently bought a PC, or for that matter are buying a new system you'll notice that most PC's make use of DDR400 (PC3200) memory or DDR2-533 (PC4200). It's the most commonly used type as this memory matches your PC's CPU bus speed. That CPU bus speed, also known as "front-side bus speed" (or FSB), is the speed at which the CPU communicates with RAM memory and the motherboard chipset. Athlon XPs have a 266, 333 or 400 MHz FSB, Pentium 4s have a 400MHz, 533MHz or 800MHz and the newer 1066 MHz FSB, AMD Durons have a 200MHz FSB and socket 478 Pentium CPU's have a 400MHz FSB, Socket 775 CPU's often have either a 400 or 533 MHz based on the CPU you use and so on and so on.
When choosing a FSB speed for the CPU you choose, be aware that you'll need to purchase memory capable of this faster speed. For example, many people are enticed by the remarkably low priced memory, yet you need to sync your memory to your CPU's FSB. First of all, all mainboard these days use either DDR or DDR2 memory, the mainboard we use needs DDR memory.
So in our case we want to make make use of 400 MHz, PC3200.
Always make sure you buy two bars so that you can have a dual-channel memory configuration, dual channel effectively double's the memory bandwidth and a Pentium 4 type of processors loves that bandwidth for sure as it has a nice impact on overall performance.
So keep this in mind, performance and stability of any system depends in part on the memory being used and the settings for the RAM timing. Many users may have their preference for "123" brand and certainly using brand name memory is a very good idea since low quality memory is often at the root of many stability issues. However, it is also important to pay attention to the timings of the memory being used.
