RAM speed upgrade - DDR2 - GM45

My laptop has one stick of 2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM. The chipset is Intel GM45.

My question is, would there be any real speed benefit if I just scrapped (meaning put the chip on ebay or into my media pc, which does not need any more ram) that chip and bought 2x 2GB (or 2x 4GB) 800MHz DDR2 RAM.

or should I just buy another 2GB stick, and if so, should the second be another 667MHz stick or an 800MHz stick?

 

You could just get another 2GB stick and put it in, as it won't matter which manufacturer there is. They should work fine togheter. And it doesn't matter which speed you get, the fastest memory will downclock to match the other memory module automatically.

 

In my case, the chipset supports 800MHz RAM as well, so would I see any difference going from 667MHz to 800MHz RAM?

 

It depends on what you are using the notebook for. If you only use it for office and light gaming, you won't notice it. If you game a lot, there will be a slight performance boost with 800Mhz RAM.

 

667Mhz to 800Mhz won't make you feel any difference, only in syntethic benchmarks, slightly, maybe 1-2% gain, so you won't gain any noticeable difference at all. Same goes with the CL. Faster ram won't give you more FPS in games.

As intel's core2-platform doesn't have a memory controler integrated to the CPU, the difference is negligable. Only on AMD and the new core i7 you can see a little performance increase. As they have an integrated MC.

 

I think a more relevant difference you would take with DDR3 1066MHz. The GM45 chipset supports it, and you could also upgrade to any Core 2 Duo, including the Extremes.

 

namaiki,

Download CPUz and check if your MB supports dual channel mode.

If it does, then I would recommend two identical sticks at the highest rating your MB supports (800Mhz). The cost difference is negligible between 667 sticks and 800 Mhz sticks, so may as well have the most current technology you can actually use.

Before you ebay or otherwise reuse the original RAM stick, run several instances of MemTest overnight to burn-in your new RAM and to also check it for errors.

The higher speed, along with an assumed dual channel configuration should yield up to 5% (or more) speed difference. Remember that this is only for the memory subsystem, not the overall notebook experience (the additional RAM should do that though).

DaniloMisura, although the chipset supports DDR3, it is almost impossible to add it to any system that ships with DDR2 support - the sockets and the RAM sticks are physically different of course (not to mention possible BIOS and other non-obvious, needed optimizations).

When you're actually switching the RAM:

Shut down the computer (do not hibernate).

Unplug the power cord, remove the battery.

Switch the RAM modules.

Power up the computer, go into the BIOS (make sure the RAM is recognized) and reboot.

Now is the time to run your MemTests. Well, after you've finished playing with the new configuration!

 

No, this cant be done. DDR2 and DDR3 are not compatible.
If the laptop uses DDR2, it can only use DDR2 RAM.

Why?
Pin count. Physically a DDR2 and a DDR3 stick are different, therefore it is impossible to stick a DDR3 stick on a DDR2 slot, it simply wont fit.

Now, you could put DDR2 1066MHz.

But as said, if you put a DDR2 800 and a DDR 667 both will run at 667. The faster sticks will always downclock to the slowest one of them (same on desktops)

Now, back to topic, for around 40 you can put 2x2GB DDR2 800 on your laptop and it should work. 667 and 800 are compatible and the mobo should support them, and if not, they will be downclocked to the speed the mobo can support.

Hope this helps!