Which RAMs should I take: 168 Pins or 184 Pin DDR ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter Meister
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Peter Meister

I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The motherboard offers 200 + 266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.

Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?

Which RAM type has more future ?

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently unknown) motherboard?

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.

I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.

Peter
 
Peter said:
I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The motherboard offers 200 +
266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.

Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?

Which RAM type has more future ?

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer
motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently
unknown) motherboard?

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.

I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.

Peter
Click to expand...

Is this the ECS K7S5A motherboard? DDR RAM will give a noticeable
performance increase. The SDRAM slots are for those who already have regular
SDRAM and want to reuse.
 
Peter said:
I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The motherboard offers 200 + 266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.

Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?

Which RAM type has more future ?

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently unknown) motherboard?

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.

I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.
Click to expand...


The difference in performance probably wouldn't be too noticeable by
most - but your 184-pin memory is (in the UK at least) less expensive
than its 168-pin counterpart. (Also "quicker" and more "current," and
more likely to work in a motherboard you may purchase in the future.)

Those are my thumb's rules.


Odie
 
I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The motherboard offers 200 + 266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.

Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?

Which RAM type has more future ?

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently unknown) motherboard?

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.

I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.

Peter
Click to expand...

The motherboards that had both SDRAM and DDR sockets on them,
in fact did not take advantage of the difference in transfer
rate. You can use either kind of RAM, with roughly the same
results. The FSB was only fast enough to get data from the
SDRAM, and the DDR gives untapped potential.

http://www.bluesmoke.net/review31_5.html (TUA266 SDRAM vs DDR)

DDR is still used on currently shipping AMD S754 and S939
motherboards, so it still has some value. There are still some
915 based Intel motherboards that use DDR.

My best SDRAM motherboard has a P4 1.8GHz on it (motherboard
was Asus P4B model with 845 chipset). I also have some P3
boards with SDRAM. All of them are currently not in use.

Paul
 
Peter Meister said:
I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The
motherboard offers 200 + 266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.
Click to expand...

Generally DDR is the way to go. Its quite a bit cheaper
than the older sdram and your new motherboard is
unlikely to be able to use the older sdram.
Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?
Yes.

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?
Click to expand...

Depends on the speeds you are considering buying.

And what matters is what speed the
particular motherboard runs them at anyway.
Which RAM type has more future ?
DDR.

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently unknown) motherboard?
DDR.

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.
Click to expand...
I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.
Click to expand...

Then get the DDR, its cheaper anyway.
 
Paul said:
The motherboards that had both SDRAM and DDR sockets on them,
in fact did not take advantage of the difference in transfer
rate. You can use either kind of RAM, with roughly the same
results. The FSB was only fast enough to get data from the
SDRAM, and the DDR gives untapped potential.
Click to expand...

That is not correct for the AMD Athlon EV6 bus that is double-pumped.
You cannot generalize this for all platforms. What might be true for the
P3-platform is not correct for other platforms. The AMD Athlon and the Intel
P4 take great advantage of DDR over SDRAM, especially on motherboards with
chipsets that offer support for both SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM (the performance
difference is big on the SIS735 chipset found on the ECS K7S5A), as the
SDRAM- part of those chipsets are tuned for DDR-SDRAM, not SDRAM.

OP mentions that his board offers 200/266MHz datarate support. Obviously it
is a socket A board. Using the TUA266 as reference is inappropriate.


My best SDRAM motherboard has a P4 1.8GHz on it (motherboard
was Asus P4B model with 845 chipset). I also have some P3
boards with SDRAM. All of them are currently not in use.
Click to expand...

Couple a P4 with SDRAM and you get poor performance. There is clear advice
to avoid the P4B due to this. A P3 1GHz with SDRAM would come close to or
beat that P4 with SDRAM, so I cannot understand how you appreciate
performance.
 
168 pins are found on SDRAM, NOT on DDR RAM. DDR RAM has the 184 pins. Use
the DDR RAM sticks for future compatibility with other motherboards. SDRAM
is no longer used.
 
"Egil Solberg" said:
That is not correct for the AMD Athlon EV6 bus that is double-pumped.
You cannot generalize this for all platforms. What might be true for the
P3-platform is not correct for other platforms. The AMD Athlon and the Intel
P4 take great advantage of DDR over SDRAM, especially on motherboards with
chipsets that offer support for both SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM (the performance
difference is big on the SIS735 chipset found on the ECS K7S5A), as the
SDRAM- part of those chipsets are tuned for DDR-SDRAM, not SDRAM.

OP mentions that his board offers 200/266MHz datarate support. Obviously it
is a socket A board. Using the TUA266 as reference is inappropriate.
Click to expand...

This article is for A7A266, the brother of the TUA266. (I quoted
the TUA266, because I happened to own one, and it is the first
thing that came to mind with both SDRAM and DDR on it. If the
OP had included a motherboard name, we wouldn't have to play
footsy with the question.) While the A7A266 does well with DDR
in the Sandra memory test, the benefit in real applications is more
subdued. DDR still wins, but if I had SDRAM already in the board,
the difference is not enough to justify dumping the SDRAM and
buying DDR.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/a7a266/page6.asp
Couple a P4 with SDRAM and you get poor performance. There is clear advice
to avoid the P4B due to this. A P3 1GHz with SDRAM would come close to or
beat that P4 with SDRAM, so I cannot understand how you appreciate
performance.
Click to expand...

Maybe the point of that comment wasn't strong enough. SDRAM's
time has passed (thus the "currently not in use"), and even DDR
is approaching the point that you should not be putting money
into it (as resale opportunities will be dropping off).

The P4B was purchased to allow use of some of the 4GB of SDRAM
I own :-) At the time, it was the only board that I thought would
be stable with 3x512MB sticks in it. It wasn't an attempt to build
a fast computer, merely a mechanism to test the RAM. And like the
SDRAM, the P4B is retired. (It is still good enough to use as a
web surfing machine, so I'm not putting it in the landfill.)

While I appreciate performance in computers, I don't waste money
on it. The machines I build are middle-of-the-road in price and
in performance. You won't catch me with an FX60 and two x1900's.

Paul
 
I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The motherboard offers 200 + 266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.

Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?

Which RAM type has more future ?

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently unknown) motherboard?

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.

I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.

Peter
Click to expand...
It is a easy question, the 184 pin is more future proof but at the we
speak there is a 200pins memory slots that it out on new motherboards
like intel. And that sort of memory is known as DDR2 witch can run at
several speed depending on the sort that you chose ei: there is DDR2
500 to 1000mhz

But for your current choise you sould go for the 184pins one and get a
ddr3200 witch is in fact a ddr pc 400mhz. These memory are known to
work at differents speed depending on the fsb of your cpu (up to
400mhz). Then if your cpu has a Front side bus of 266 capable then the
pc400 is what you want as it will adjust it self for the correct fsb
depending if your motherboard has a jumperless bios (some old
motherboard must be adjust manualy to get the correct speed of the
cpu/ram) see your manual for that.

So, for the speed that you will gain, it is more likely to be not much
noticable but again it depend on what application your working on your
pc. Pc400 --) are 3200mb/s in memory bandwith or in your situation 266
--) 2100mb/s vs 200 witch would be less than 2100mb/s. So on heavy
application the higher you go the faster you will end the work of the
cpu load... in theories.

168 pins are known to be Sdram. in most case
184 pins are ddr module for double data rate.


it mitgh be possible that 168pins mem would be more expensive due to
the fact that it is a out dated product and witch is not much sold on
todays pc, so the performance here on getting something "more
expensive" would be useless.

Get something like the value ram from Kingston. You can get 1gig of
ram for less than a 100$ canadian. Dont get infineon and stick with
the big names.
 
I currently have a motherboard which can hold
168 Pin RAMs as well as 184 Pin DDRs. The motherboard offers 200 + 266 FrontSideSpeeed.

I am now have to decide which RAMs I should take.

Are 184 Pin DDRs faster than 168 PINs ?

How much faster (without overclocking) ? 20% ?

Which RAM type has more future ?

Possibly I change in a couple of month/years to another, newer motherboard.
Which type of RAM is more likely to fit into the new (currently unknown) motherboard?

Ok, I know, for exact statements you need the exact specifications.
But I don't know which motherboard I will buy in the future.

I only would appreciate to have rules of thumb.

Peter
Click to expand...

Definitely the 184 pin Rams.

They are newer and will be available for your next upgrade to another
motherboard.
 
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