Computers Have Taken Over: Run RAM Run
This week, Truly Obscure will be featuring computer stuff- much of it the latest and greatest, most of it aimed at “enthusiasts” or “gamers” and other people who care way too much about their hardware specs. We realize this is a departure from our normal fare, and hope you enjoy this feature, as we take a look at everything from RAM to TV tuner and dual graphics devices to cases, cooling systems, and our recent review of uninterruptible power supplies.
Our focus today is on RAM, the single largest upgrade most people can easily add that will increase the speed of their machine. Processors and graphics cards have their uses, but almost everyone could use more/faster RAM! And though most people won’t use the capability, faster RAM can give you the ability to overclock your system to incredible speeds. You can check what RAM would work for you using either Kingston’s or Crucial’s useful configuration tools.
We’re focusing on higher-end components, and we have two configurations. The first is 1 GB of Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC6400 DIMM memory. That’s a lot of information, but it’s pretty simply: size, manufacturer and style, type, and speed. The size is certainly important, but you’ll probably want to buy at least 1 GB, and we recommend buying a single stick instead of two sticks in order to conserve ports and for best performance. Any modern computer needs at least 512 MB of RAM to run well, and 1 gigabyte+ is required for many popular games. The speed is less important for most people, but speed can be more important than quantity now that motherboards can translate the extra speed into better performance.
The Kingston HyperX bested regular “store brand” or generic RAM by significant boosts even before overclocking or tuning- there were noticeable benefits (over 10%) opening Photoshop and booting our test machines. It might not be worth the premium ($200 or so versus half that for the cheap stuff)- but the lower latency settings (4-4-4-12, don’t worry if you don’t know what that means) are excellent, and the memory was perfectly stable and overclocked easily without issues. One issue we did have was that we had to change the latency settings ourselves, as out of the box, the memory was set to slower ratings.
If 1 GB is not enough for you- if you plan on editing video, heavy graphics use, or upgrading to Windows Vista- then you might as well look at 2 GB as anything in between is a bit silly, and RAM works best (and sometimes only) in pairs. And since you obviously demand a lot from your machine, why not splurge a bit on the good stuff? 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC8000 DIMM= will allow you to overclock your machine to insane levels while remaining rock solid stable, and is the sort of RAM that you can plan on using in your next PC as well (and maybe even the one after that).
We put the Ballistix through the paces, and though even most recent games (Company of Heroes a rare exception) don’t see much performance gains with 2 GB versus 1 GB of RAM, most applications saw boosts on the order of 10-20%. File copying operations became hard-drive limited, meaning that the RAM was not really a factor. Real-world performance is tricky with RAM as these are the sort of modules that you buy to futureproof your system, but benchmarking tools and heating tests showed that you do indeed get what you pay for (around $500). The Crucial Ballistix PC8000 cools well, and is the fastest memory we have tried.
Everything in our society today is run by computers, at least for the most part and having a reliable computer is important to many people. If you have a laptop that needs some work then you can use the computer to find great deals on laptop repair. Even if you need a new laptop battery or a new laptop hard drive they are only a couple clicks away with the amazing world wide web.
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