Is DDR3 worth it??

Shamrogue

Im just looking at DDR3 and its quite impressive but with the cost of
2X1Gb DDR2 SDRAM PC2-8500 is about 100+
and the cost of
2X1Gb DDR3 SDRAM PC3-8500 is about 250-350,
then take into account the difference in cost of the motherboard to support DDR3 compare to DDR2 of about 100-150.

Is the extra ~€300 for DDR3 Ram worth the buy?
It does seem to me like its worth while, until I see other rigs that are 300 - 400 cheaper then the one ive priced up and people are saying that the DDR2 one sounds great.

Cheers guys.

uberpixie

Shamrogue wrote: »

Im just looking at DDR3 and its quite impressive but with the cost of
2X1Gb DDR2 SDRAM PC2-8500 is about 100+
and the cost of
2X1Gb DDR3 SDRAM PC3-8500 is about 250-350,
then take into account the difference in cost of the motherboard to support DDR3 compare to DDR2 of about 100-150.

Is the extra ~€300 for DDR3 Ram worth the buy?
It does seem to me like its worth while, until I see other rigs that are 300 - 400 cheaper then the one ive priced up and people are saying that the DDR2 one sounds great.

Cheers guys.

short term:no, not worth the money

Longterm: yes when prices come down and they start making faster DDR3.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/cpu-memory/review/2007/09/14/DDR2-and-DDR3-Memory-Round-Up/p1

Any new memory standard is rarely worth it until it comes down in price and gets faster.

People were asking the same thing DDR1 Vs DDR2 when DDR2 came on the scene and the same thing happened.

fot the moment stick with DDR2 and spend the money you save on getting a better gfx card.

CivilServant

Nope not at all, the speed of memory is one of the least important factors in a computer. The amount of memory on the other hand...

Shamrogue

Cool guys, i might look into building a new PC in the summer. Should be some sort of advancement by then with the speed of technology. I think my graphics card is going to cost half the price of the entire PC. If only id the time and the money to build now...

Cheers

DirkVoodoo

DDR3 suffers from poorer timings than DDR2 at this early stage, so the differences between the two are marginal. Your best bet is buying one of those hybrid boards with DDR2 and DDR3 slots if you want DDR3 memory in a year or so.

However, DDR2 still offers great performance and the prices are so low now that it makes sense to buy a 2GB kit for under €100 while DDR3 is still teething.

Unless you are an extreme overclocker, stick with DDR2 for now.

daveharnett

Shamrogue wrote: »

Is DDR3 worth it?

No at all.
1: Large capacity fast DDR2 is available at fantastic prices right now, offering a way better price/performance ratio.
2: Smart prefetching and large caches on new processors are making ram speed less important to overall performance.
3: Hard drives are and will be the major bottleneck for some time to come - ram just doesn't come into the equasion.

nibble

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

DDR3 suffers from poorer timings than DDR2 at this early stage, so the differences between the two are marginal. Your best bet is buying one of those hybrid boards with DDR2 and DDR3 slots if you want DDR3 memory in a year or so.

However, DDR2 still offers great performance and the prices are so low now that it makes sense to buy a 2GB kit for under €100 while DDR3 is still teething.

Unless you are an extreme overclocker, stick with DDR2 for now.

It doesn't really because you see the timings are based on clock speed, so say CAS4 is 4 clock cycles. Now with DDR3 the frequency they can operate at is much higher so CAS4 at these increased speeds becomes a much smaller period of time. To calculate latency properly you'd have to work out the actual time in ns.

Anyway to the OP: nope I wouldn't bother with DDR3 until it actually does something worthwhile, ie sometime towards the end of next year when we have intel next gen

astrofool

Echoing what was said above, it will be worth it in about a year, but not at all right now. In fact, if you save the price difference, you'll be able to buy a new board and RAM in the future.

Also, the capacity is lower than DDR2 right now, where 2GB sticks are becoming the standard, and the speed isn't great enough to get over the latency hump either.

DirkVoodoo

I get your point Nibble, but does the slower timings at a higher frequency for DDR3 not essentially equate to the same performance for low latency DDR2? In other words, the price/performance of DDR3 isn't really justified at this present moment?

nibble

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I get your point Nibble, but does the slower timings at a higher frequency for DDR3 not essentially equate to the same performance for low latency DDR2? In other words, the price/performance of DDR3 isn't really justified at this present moment?

Precisely.
The only time I could see anyone really needing it would be, for example someone who was going for insane clocks and wanted to run ram 1:1 or with an up divider, where the speed they can run at would be necessary.