Upgrading to 2 gigs on E1705

I plan on upgrading to 2 gigs of 667DDR2 ram in my new E1705 because for once in my life I have some extra money laying around. Im looking to spend around $160 on it. What are the best brands for Dells? I know the good brands and would personally get either the Corsiar Value Select from Newegg for $160 or the OCZ from ZZF.com. Im sure these would do just fine. Which do you think I should get? Anything else I should consider in my price range?

Also, how much of an increase in speed am I gonna see with 2 gigs as apposed to 1? I know upgrading from 512 to 1024 was pretty nice. Thanks

 

512MB -> 1GB is indeed nice.
1GB -> 2GB wont make a noticeable difference in everyday apps (may make difference in heavy enginnering applications, heavy gaming).

My advice: Put that extra money in bank/CD earn 5% interest, upgrade next year when 1)money has grown 2)Memory prices are further down.

 

I got the Transcend at newegg and it works just fine. I felt I needed it for photo processing mainly. When I do play games, its nice to have. I ebayed the 1 gB of 533 pc4200 that came with the system from dell.

$160 + 1 year interest = $170...

 

This one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820208037

I'm still doing my home work I've read that slower ram(533) with tighter timing(CAS) is faster(2-3%) than the (677). Their prices at newegg seems to reflect more people buying the pc4200 ram.

Other than the extra headroom, any other improvments, speed!, noticed?

 

667 is faster than 533, regardless of the latency. 533 is cheaper than 667, which is why people tend to buy 533 more than 667.

 

No offense, but can you back that statement up in an artical? Did you do your own timings?

Some of the 667 at newegg is cheaper than the 533

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=55360&highlight=533

Thx

 

can't really compare...i had 1 gb of 533 then 2 gb of 667...2 gb is simply faster...if you want "tighter" you can always buy pc5400 667 with better latency numbers than pc5300...but you pay more for it..

 

Yes, the price is right for the one you mentioned..same one as my link?

 

that's the one...2 months ago it was $82 so get it cheap while you can

 

How about this? I think this is a good example of why 667 is faster than 553 (other than the obvious "faster clock speed means faster ram").

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/memory/other/mushkin/DDR2/pc4200/

Cheaply made RAM is always cheaper than well made RAM. Prices will go up and down because of many factors: the need to liquidate a certain brand, volume purchases, market price variations, etc.

 

Hey, thanks for the link.

From what I have been reading this is not the case with the DDR2 stuff. Check my first link from this forum which mirrors stuff from these tests at this site: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=873

I'm going back to your link to check it out.

EDIT:

Ok, I read your link. It’s saying the same thing all the others are saying; “As we've seen with Corsair's low latency DDR2 kit, when you're limited at DDR2-667 and lower, memory timings can have a significant impact on overall performance.”

As you said, the really expensive “low latency” stuff is better at higher speeds. Unfortunately, that desktop ram and prices will never be in my E1705.

It looks like that if you can get the 667 and 533 at the came price, you are better off with the 533 with lower latency.

Agree - disagree? There seems to be a lot of FUD over the DDR2 as to the older ram where faster was always better.

 

Don't forget about the FSB. If your FSB is 667MHz (which it should be if you have a Duo Core), and your RAM is running at 667MHz, you will get better performance than using RAM running at 533MHz. So, even the lowest latency 533 won't be as fast as any latency 667. Do you agree?

 

Funny you should mention FSB. On the Anand tech site they review our E-1705. In the reviews they state that although our chipset supports dual channel it doesn't use it What is that all about?

I'm still digging, this is getting me wondering if a lot of people are getting their chains jerked and not knowing it!

Cheers

 

Can you provide a link to that review? Specifically, I'm interested in a direct link to where they state that the E1705 doesn't use dual channel.