# Will slower RAM hold me back?



## tanusgreystar (Apr 18, 2007)

I am going to overclock my E7200 as soon as I go through the thermal compound break-in period (just got a new cooler). But I had a question about my RAM. I have 2x2gb Crucial Ballistix 800mhz RAM and I have 2gb of older Crucial 800mhz RAM. The timings are better on the Ballistix RAM and they are more overclockable than the other RAM, and I was wondering if the older RAM would hold me back as far as OC'ing goes, or slow down performance at all? I like having 6gb RAM but if it will affect the oc I would rather just have the 4gb of better RAM. Thanks.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

It should be fine, usually you can keep your RAM quite close to its rated specs by changing the RAM divider, or usually on most motherboards you just choose a speed and it chooses a divider, or it can even ungang the RAM completely. DDR2 800 shouldn't hold you back at all, and though I normally don't overclock my RAM you might be able to get a little bit higher than specs, I don't know.


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## tanusgreystar (Apr 18, 2007)

So do you think it would be worth it to buy another stick of the cheaper ram, so I can have 8gb? For some reason I just can't find any more Ballistix ram for the price I paid for mine. I must have happened across a great deal. I only paid around $50 for the 4gb of Ballistix ram. I really don't want to pay any more than that, so I'm thinking of just buying 1 2gb stick of regular Crucial ram. My mobo takes up to 16 gb but I can't imagine ever needing that much for a few years anyway!


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

You don't need 8GB of RAM, anything more than 4GB is unnecessary unless you're doing something like intensive Photoshop, movie editing, virtualization, or running server software.

The main chip manufacturers have switched from making DDR2 to making mostly DDR3. Thus the supply of DDR2 has gone down, and the price went up. I got my 4GB DDR2 1066 for $52. The same kit now costs $120.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

4GB of RAM is more than sufficient and filling all the RAM slots on a Mobo can cause Voltage issues.


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## tanusgreystar (Apr 18, 2007)

So I should pull the extra ram? I mean, I have the extra 2 gb. Will it hurt anything to run 6gb?


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## tanusgreystar (Apr 18, 2007)

Another question. I'm not sure if it is appropriate to start another thread over this, but, I'm on the 3rd day of breaking in an application of Antec Silver 5, and at first my temps were really good. In Realtemp I had 40c to 41c Core 0 and 30c core 1. I've been trying not to run the computer very long, a few hours, but last night I ran backup and just let it run overnight, figuring the computer would go into hibernate afterwards, which it did, but now my temps are 41c 33c to 34c. I'm not sure how long you are supposed to run the computer when you're breaking it in. I think the ambient temp in the room is up from yesterday so it could be that. Do you think it's ok or should I reapply the compound and be more careful of leaving the computer on?


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

I believe AS says about 200 hrs. to cure but your temps won't go down more than a few degrees C after that time so don't be afraid to turn up the wick.
It wont hurt anything to run the 6GB of RAM but you won't see any performance gain.


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