Upgrade system ram from DDR2 to DDR5 big difference?

However, windows 7 still requires more than 16x as much memory as xp to operate. If windows 7 had been released in 2007, most available machines at the time would not have been able to handle it. It's popularity lies more in what has been removed from vista than in what's new in 7.
People and organizations do not willingly change habits or traditions. The only way memory requirements and all other minimum requirements for any other software is not going stop increasing is if people stop trying to create more capable hardware. I don't see that happening any time soon.

That said, I have on average 4.5 GB of free memory at any given time.. That's $300 worth of hardware sitting idle while the movie I watch is being read in 16MB increments every few seconds. I'd prefer to reduce the number of read/write operations in my HDD if possible

I'm using a laptop which only has 2 DIMM slots for DDR3 at up to 1333MHz, and at the time of purchase, 4GB dimms were $300 each. I run other versions of windows in virtualBox in linux for the purpose of remote desktop connections, and sometimes will have 3 virtual machines up simultaneously. That memory comes in real handy sometimes

nate42nd said:

DarkPhoenix said:

My Motherboard will not use more than 4 gigs of ram.. BUT.. I was thinking about a way to cheat this.

I understand every time you go up from a DDR rating say from DDR1 to DDR2 with 2 gigs of ram.. its really like you are getting a 3 gig stick of ram if it were still rated at ddr1.

This is how the DDR thing was explained to me.

So If I have DDR2 now with 4 gigs.. and swap that for 4 gigs of DDR5.. wont that be like getting something like 6 gigs of ram effectively work/power wise? (like having 6 gigs of DDR2)

I have not seen anybody say DDR5 is really only in graphics cards right now. "System memory" is only up to DDR3 right now as far as I know. Motherboards are made to accept DDR2 or DDR3.

I think 4GB is good for most people. 8GB is fine too. If you can go DDR3 then do it.

You really have to find a good balance between CPU, RAM, Hard drive speed, and graphics. Take my system for example, I need a better graphics card....that's where my "bottleneck" is. Find your "bottleneck" and upgrade whatever it may be.

Thanks for all the Great replies from all of you.. I am going to pick on nate42nd's post because it gets back to the core of my problem.

I didn't know they didn't have ddr5 for system ram.. I just got a DDR 5 video card.

Finding the Bottleneck.

That is what I want to do. I cannot use ddr3 ram because I only have the ddr2 type slot.. I didn't know the slots were different.

I Love this video card.. and I do see an improvement.. But.. I feel I should see lots more of an improvement. My games run better.. but not as good as people seem to brag about with this card. It's an ATI Radeon HD 5750. (1 Gigabyte DDR5)

CPU is Pentium 4 (D, Cedar Mills with hyperthreading)

Motherboard is ECS GF7050VT-M

With a Bios upgrade it can accept these CPU's: Q9300,Q9450,Q9550,E8300 and already has support for Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad.

Here's the specs: http://www.ecsusa.com/ECSWebSite/Pro...uID=52&LanID=9

I feel the CPU may be my bottleneck. But I do not really know this.. how does one know? How much of a difference do the other specifications on the motherboard make?

If I got a better CPU, would that board help the video card to really shine like it's supposed to.. or should I look for another limiting factor? Like perhaps something else on the board itself?

For instance, I was playing Metal of Honor Airborne and I notice when there is a lot of heavy fast activity on the screen it slows down and get choppy. This is the same thing it did with my ATI 2600 HD 512 MB card. Perhaps not as bad.. but I expect the 1 gig ddr5 to be good enough to solve that problem completely. Are my expectations too high?

Also, would further overclocking the ATI card using the ATI overclocking tool to safely overclock it help out.. or because I may have a bottleneck someplace.. I wont actually see the difference?

In Catalyst Control Center, should I leave all the settings at default or should I adjust them?

1) Your CPU is a bottleneck

2) Every system needs balance - see below

3) Don't overclock unless you have an effcient cooling setup

Here is the rig I built:

Excellent gaming performance in 7

I change anything, it's out of wack. So a new 5870 would require a quad to push it etc.

Frostmourne said:

1) Your CPU is a bottleneck

2) Every system needs balance - see below

3) Don't overclock unless you have an effcient cooling setup

Here is the rig I built:

Excellent gaming performance in 7

I change anything, it's out of wack. So a new 5870 would require a quad to push it etc.

The only overclocking I would have done is using the built in ATI Tool.. they say this is safe and does not require extra cooling.. it just uses the built in fan on the card. The fan is made to handle overclocking of this type.

I have read about some hard core manual overclocking procedures but never felt the need to try it. So I can understand why you say changing anything in your rig would throw it out of whack.

Out of the CPU's listed.. which one would you recommend?

Oh, BTW folks.. I just wanted a better card.. all my games even new ones from this year and last year ran great with the ATI 2600 HD Pro 512 card... With the new card, I figure I should be able to take advantage of all the settings on very high and better pixel shaders etc.. With the 512 card, I ran all my games on medium settings.