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#21
Don't take my choices as final. There are plenty of good Gigabyte boards to choose from, as well as processors and memory. That was just a quick search.
That's even more reason to hold out a little longer for a much larger upgrade. If you were running a Pentium 4 right now, then anything would be a nice upgrade. I would just rather see you spend your money one something you'll feel is a big improvement, than something you'll feel is the same as where you were before the upgrade.
FredeGail:
I'd have to say I agree with Deacon... but I do have a question before I commit. When you said you swapped in your bros RAM sticks of the same speed... were his the same capacity in GB??? BTW... all the Gigabyte 775 mobos that support ddr3 only take a max of 4GB!
I would hate to see you upgrade to a mobo that can take your current cpu, and only 4GB max of ddr3 ram! It would also tie you to that socket 775 CPU.
Hell, that Asus P5Q PRO mobo is still a great mobo... and it will take up to 16 GB of ram! Perhaps try finding someone who has older DDR2 ram and buy it used! Or do like I am, keep that Q9550, and make the move to a SSD!
FredeGail:
Well then since you already have a SSD, I'd go ahead and spend the approx. $150-170 USD and get 8GB of DDR2 matched. Perhaps you currently do have a bad stick. 8GB of good memory could enable you to use that socket 775 and Q9550 for a few more years! Additionally, you could later turn that old system into a great media server... that's my plan when I finally upgrade again! But I have my sights set on the new octal core Intel CPUs due late this year! Although I wont buy one till they have been out at least a year, the price drops, and they are proven!
Heres a link to DDR2 800MHz PC2 6400 RAM: Newegg.com - Computer Hardware, Memory, Desktop Memory, 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM, DDR2 800 (PC2 6400), 4GB (2 x 2GB)
If it was a bad stick, he'd be seeing errors, BSoDs, and program crashes. A run of Memtest will be sure, but I don't think the memory is bad.
I am assuming this due to OP's report of a difference in performance, as he stated it is the same speed, same quantity, different clock.... so how else could he realize a "seat of the pants" performance increase?
I highly doubt anyone could tell a difference between 2 sets of RAM where the only difference is the the timing. Therefore I say something is bad, or going bad. He shouldnt even notice a difference!