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Anyone have an educated thought on the value of one over the other?

Is it worth having the upgradeability of going with a newer MB? I've read some varied comments about cass latency & the newer DDR3 compared to the DDR2.

Can anyone enlighten us in an unconfusing way as to any significant advantages and/or disadvantages of going to a DDR3 system at this time as it applies to a dedicated DAW. And do cass latencies directly relate and/or affect the low latency that we all try to achieve in digital recording. Or am I already confused?

I'm not looking for a book but some sound advice (pun intended).

Thanks!

Comments

Guest Fri, 08/24/2007 - 19:44

HI,

as of now DDR3 with its much higher latency well...sucks for audio.

in our benchmark tests
we tool a E6850 (3.0G 1333 FSB) and overclocked it to 3.6G.
we used DDR3 1600 ram running @ 1600 FSB
for every synthetic benchmark this system screamed, for video rendering it was awesome, for 3d animation (cinebench etc) it was awesome.

for running our Sonar 6 test or Nuendo 3 test it did not do anywhere near what a stock 6850 would do with DDR2 800 CL4.
particularly at low latency. 128 and below buffers.

as to Cas latency see above!

right now the best is DDR 2 800 CL 4
you can buy the mobo that takes both bear in mind its 2 banks of either and cant use both at the same time so you are limited to a total of 4gig. (2 x 2gig sticks)

i feel that 1 the controller (memory for DDR3) is in its infancy, (kind of like when DDR2 first came out DDR1 was still better.

and 2 the large latency of DDR3 (8ms) plays a big part in it.

Audio is alot of small files, video etc is large files so bandwidth is better than latency.

for audio its latency.

Scott
ADK

anonymous Sat, 08/25/2007 - 06:34

Memory & 32bit

Thanks Scott! Well done - I'm glad I asked. Despite the temptation, the leap to purchase the fastest and newest isn't always the wisest.

Clarification: Okay, after reading for the third time. Your comment

you can buy the mobo that takes both bear in mind its 2 banks of either and cant use both at the same time so you are limited to a total of 4gig. (2 x 2gig sticks)

- you are not talking about DDR2 & DDR3, right? I've read that MOBOs are not compatible with both.

I've also read that using WinXP in 32bit and 4x1gig sticks - windows will not recognize the 4th stick - is this accurate? And is there a difference in using 2x2gig instead hence your comment perhaps?

you are limited to a total of 4gig. (2 x 2gig sticks)

Thanks again!

Guest Sat, 08/25/2007 - 08:42

HI,

as i said

you can buy the mobo that takes both bear in mind its 2 banks of either and cant use both at the same time so you are limited to a total of 4gig. (2 x 2gig sticks)

you can have 4gig in WIndows the 4th gig is reseverd for hardware (assuming the use of the 3gig switch) otherwise its 2gig and 2gig.

the 4th is important to those with UADs/Pocos.
in fact 3gig is rather pointless even without it, as the hardware memory hole will still take away ram.

buy the "mixed ram" board may allow after future code updates to get the performance one would expect for DDR3 then again it may require the next gen chipset!

i wont be selling the mixed board.... i am waiting for the X38 chipset to come out before i look at DDR3 again.

not to mention its insane cost right now, and thats with a memory market who's prices have never been so low.

Scott