Is DDR3 ram a significant upgrade?

[weasel fierce]

This might be an ignorant question so don't eat me :)

If you have the same amount of RAM, is there a significant benefit between DDR2 and DDR3?

In other words, if its a cost question, is this a part thats worth splurging on, or are there bigger fish to fry when deciding on parts?

edit: does the system make a difference in the determination? (i.e. do you get more of an advantage with DDR3 on a computer with a much better processor versus an older one etc)

[mikewhatever]

DDR3 is faster and uses less power, so yes, sure, it is a significant upgrade. Just make sure the motherboard can take DDR3.

[CraigPaleo]

This might be an ignorant question so don't eat me :)


Aren't all questions ignorant? If you knew the answer, why would you ask? :P

Sorry, just had to respond to that. I don't know but am curious to see the answer to your question myself.

[undecim]

It's not that big a performance difference. Almost all DDR2 and DDR3 have the same latencies (about 10 ns; High end ram you can get down to about 9 ns), and from what I've seen (i.e read about and/or subjectively experienced), the bandwidth doesn't make a significant difference.

If it were me, I would rather have more DDR2 ram than less DDR3. Or perhaps spend the difference on a processor with a large cache. That will give you better performance in most cases.

EDIT: I should note that motherboards that support DDR3 generally have better memory controllers, being more recently manufactured. That will have a significant impact on performance, even if you only use DDR2 ram.

[rJ~]

As far as I know, going from DDR2 to DDR3 is not really a big upgrade, unless you're doing specific tasks that require high memory bandwidth. For gaming and everyday use you wouldn't notice the difference by just upgrading motherboard and RAM (assuming your current motherboard can't support DDR2 and DDR3, most motherboards don't support both).

[3Miro]

I made an upgrade recently and it did give me a noticeable difference. The computer is much "smoother" now.