DDR2 memory and Hard Drive Question

I just got my ASUS G50V-A1 yesterday and its awesome. I already know I am going to change out the hard drives for sure. One will be a WD 160GB 7200RPM primary OS drive and the other a WD 500GB 5400RPM storage drive. It came with 2X WD2500BEVS WD Scorpio 250GB 5400RPM. How much do you think I should sell it for? The other question is I wanted to change the DDR2 memory to a lower latency type. Current is a 2X 2GB Hynix DDR2 PC6400 set at 6-6-6-18. I wanted to get either a OCZ or GSkill 5-5-5-15. What do you recommend and how much should I sell my Hynix for? I know getting a faster hard drive helps with boot up time but I dunno what difference it will make if I got a lower latency memory. Thanks!

 

no offense but dont bother upgrading the drives the 250gb 5400rpm drives are on par with the 160gb 7200rpm drive, so the performance gain will be negligable. The only difference is capacity.
A 320Gb 5400 drive sells for $60-70 new these days, so you can try selling for $60 (each), but it may take some time to find a seller.

The memory upgrade is again a waste. You will notice absolutely no performance increase going from CAS 6 to CAS 5. Differences will show in synthetic tests, but you will notice no difference in the real world.

If you want the system to run fast, get 2 320gb 7200rpm drives or 2 500gb 5400rpm drives.
Upgrading the memory is not worth it at all.

K-TRON

 

What do you recommend as far as the company I should go with for the 320GB 7200 RPM hard drive? Western Digital?

 

I agree with K-TRON.


Just a waste to upgrade to what you where thinking of! No offence meant


I'd go for 2x500GB 5400rpm drives as those are as fast as 320GB 7200rpm drives. Any brand will do, aslong as it's WD, Seagate or Hitachi..

Don't even bother changing the memory.

 

No memory change and either changing to 2X 500GB 5400 or 2X 320GB 7200 RPM. Got it. Thanks!

 

Wait until mid december at around Christmas. 500GB 7200RPM HDDs are going to be released by Seagate.

 

I agree with rapion125 and Michel.
The 500gb 7200 series drives are going to be out in about 2 -3 weeks, and if the harddrive price trend continues, by christmas time the 500gb drives will be about $120-140 which isnt a bad price.
Hitachi is going to release their 500gb 5400rpm 5K500B drive soon, so that will add competition towards the 500gb 5400rpm seagate and the 500gb 5400 WD.
WD has a solid drive right now, and it does perform really well. I think it can do 64mb/sec which is on par with 7200rpm drives, it just has a slower access time. (Approximately ~18-19ms depending on manufacturer, while the 7200rpm 320gb drives have between ~14 and ~16ms)

With harddrive prices continuing to drop, I suggest doing this:
Buy a single 500gb 5400rpm drive now, and than around christmas time get a 500gb 7200rpm drive, and use the 7200 drive for the main harddisc.

K-TRON

 

Hey....i jus happened to see the discussion on low latency rams.....n something came to mind .i myself am looking for a pc2 6400 200 pin 800 mhz so dimm tuned for extreme performance........i have searched for a week and have only found 2 modules that suit the purpose the hyperX and the Corsair XMS.............but out of the two which do u recon i should go wid...Corsair does not have a ultra low lat hwereas kingston does.........thanks........

 

Stonesrubber,
Are you looking at DDR2 sodimms?
I ask because Corsair does not offer a XMS line for laptop memory cards. They have a gaming series, and a value series.

If you really care about performance get the CAS 5 Pc6400 memory. It really will not show any difference in performance but if you want to waste your money to satisfy having CAS5 memory than so be it.
The corsair memory most likely uses Qimonda memory chips, while Kinston seems to be pretty dedicated to SEC and hynix memory chips.

K-TRON

 

Well.............the Cas 6400 is an option but the Kingston HyperX modules have a ultra low latency of 4.....besides am not sure if the Cas 6400 is designed fopr gaming...............n ...yes the corsair site still talks of their gaming series

 

i mean ..................i don understand..........pc2 6400 cl4 200 pin
dat hard to find??????????

 

They aren't common because there are no tangible performance benefits. Who's going to pay $200+ for the Kingston 2x2GB DDR2-800 CL=4 when you can get a lot of 2x2GB DDR2-800 CL=5 kits for $50+ on sale.