billdotson
March 31st, 2007, 07:27 PM
I went this morning to go get another 256MB stick for my sister's PC as it was running slow and I thought that 512MB of RAM would help. So I pulled the stick out.. it is a Samsung PC2700 Stick and I went to the store looking for another 256MB. The only 256MB modules they had were K-Byte and while they were PC2700 I didn't know if the clock speed was 333MHz on the original. I also was weary of buying RAM from a different manufacturer and now that I think of it I don't even know if they have the same latency.
I asked the Staples rep and he kindof scoffed at me and said "Yeah 333MHz is the standard PC2700 speed." I have built my own PC just 6 months ago but I felt like a complete idiot. I just bought a 2x1GB Corsair RAM package so I wasn't worrying about looking for compatibility.
So apparently, PC2700 means that the max bandwidth of that RAM is 2.7GB/s and since RAM sends 8 bytes at a time so 333Mhz * 8 = 2700. So I guess he was right. Something I don't understand though is that PC2700 (according to wikipedia) operates at 166MHz using DDR-333 chips. That doesn't seem to make any sense. Also, there is latency like CAS, RAS to CAS, RAS precharge, and RAS Activate to Precha. I don't know what any of those are but I have heard it is often smart to have the same manufacturer, bus speed, latency timings and single-sided or double-sided. I don't know the specs on the RAM I bought except for the PC2700 and I really don't know what single-sided or double-sided is.
Although, it seems to be working in her PC :/
I asked the Staples rep and he kindof scoffed at me and said "Yeah 333MHz is the standard PC2700 speed." I have built my own PC just 6 months ago but I felt like a complete idiot. I just bought a 2x1GB Corsair RAM package so I wasn't worrying about looking for compatibility.
So apparently, PC2700 means that the max bandwidth of that RAM is 2.7GB/s and since RAM sends 8 bytes at a time so 333Mhz * 8 = 2700. So I guess he was right. Something I don't understand though is that PC2700 (according to wikipedia) operates at 166MHz using DDR-333 chips. That doesn't seem to make any sense. Also, there is latency like CAS, RAS to CAS, RAS precharge, and RAS Activate to Precha. I don't know what any of those are but I have heard it is often smart to have the same manufacturer, bus speed, latency timings and single-sided or double-sided. I don't know the specs on the RAM I bought except for the PC2700 and I really don't know what single-sided or double-sided is.
Although, it seems to be working in her PC :/