Which is faster? 2Gb at 667MHz or 3Gb at 533MHz

Which would be the faster combination? 2Gb running at 667MHz(1Gb x 2, each at 667MHz) or 3Gb running at 533MHz(1Gb at 667MHz + 2Gb at 667MHz or 533MHz)?

I'm looking to upgrade the 1Gb of ram on a T60 to 3Gb by adding a 2Gb stick and read that it will take a 2Gb 667MHz stick in one DIMM but will only run it at 533MHz. Is this true?

 

depends on your usage. most people will say though, 3gb> 2gb since Vista will cache an extra 1gb of data. Anything is faster than fetching from the harddrive.

 

Will 3Gb still be faster even if it's operating at a slower speed(533 vs 667)?

Also, I plan on running XP. My main applications are Photoshop and similar programs.

 

Your question is sort of apples and oranges. For the most part however, given the same processor 2 gigs at a high memory speed will be faster.

However, if you had an application with huge memory demand where memory size becomes the bottle neck then, it could be that sheer memory size becomes important, more important than the clock speed of memory. So the answer to your question will be load dependent.

 

Thanks Renee,

This would be considering the same processor. This will be used in a T60 with T7200 2.0Ghz C2D. From what I've read, this will run memory at 667MHz up to 2Gb but drops down to 533MHz above 2Gb. I'm just wondering if it's worth going up to 3Gb or not. As I said, I do like to use Photoshop quite a bit and the files can get pretty big.